.iiiil 



111: 



iiiiii 
„ ill 



I?incr Ward. 
A White tower. 
B Wardrobe tower. 
C Cold Harbour. 
I) St. Peter's Church. 
E Block on Tower Green. 
F Officer's house. 
G Lieutenant's house. 
}{ The Garden. 
I Queen's apartments, 
K Queen's garden. 
L Gunners' quarters. 

On the Wall. 

I Pieauchamp tower. 
I) Prisoners' walk. 

c Belfry. 

d Raleigh's walk. 

e Hlootiy tower. 

f Lantern. 

g Salt tower. 

h Broad Arrow tower. 

i Constable tower. 

k Martin tower. 

1 Northumberland's walk. 

ai Brick tower. 

n Bowyer tower. 

o Flint tower. 

p Develin tower. 

Outer Ward. 

1 Postern. 

2 Middle tower. 

3 Byeward tower. 

4 Gateway under Bloody t»wer. 

5 Hall tower. 

6 Great hall. 

r'! 
9 St. Thomas' tower. 
10 Cradle tower. 

I I Well tower. 

12 Galley man tower. 

13 Iron gate. 

14 Brass mount. 

1 5 Legge mount. 
i6 Soldiers' quarters. 




VIEW OF HER MAJESTY'S TOWER IN THE REIG>^ OF ELIZABETH. 



\ 



w^ 



-^^^=s^^^ll^^i«s 




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'^ft 




Her Majesties Tower 



BY 



WILLIAM HEPWOETH DIXON. 



NEW YORK: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
18 6 9. 



7) A ^^7 



BEgUEST 
MT. NCV. JULIUS W. ATWDOD' 
JUNE 5, 1945 



^^ 






TO 

QUEEN VICTORIA, 

THESE STUDIES IN 

HER MAJESTY'S TOWER 

ARE 

DEDICATED 

BY 
EXPRESS PERMISSION. 



PREFACE 



TWENTY years ago I wrote some chapters on the 
Tower — especially on the human interests which 
cling around it ; and since that time I have noted, with 
care, such passages in either the State Papers or printed 
book^ as threw light into the cells once occupied by the 
heroes and heroines of English story. This volume — a 
book of identifications — is the fruit of this long-continu- 
ed search. 

In the labour of reading and deciphering the State Pa- 
pers, for the purposes of this work, I stand indebted to 
Her Majesty's Deputy-keeper of the Eecords, Mr. T. 
DuFFUS Hardy, to an extent which no words of mine 
can adequately express. 

6 St. James's Terhace, 

New Year's Day, 1869. 



CONTENTS. 



CUAP. P4QP 

I. THE PILE 9 

II. INNER WARD AND OUTER WARD 15 

III. THE WHARF 20 

IV. RIVER RIGHTS 28 

V. THE WHITE TOWER 32 

VI. CHARLES OF ORLEANS 41 

VII. UNCLE GLOUCESTER 45 

VIII. PRISON RULES 53 

IX. BEAUCHAMP TOWER 58 

X. THE GOOD LORD COBHAM 63 

XI. KING AND CARDINAL 73 

XII. THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE 79 

Xin. MADGE CHETNE 90 

XIV. HEIRS TO THE CROWN 101 

XV. THE NINE DATS' QUEEN 109 

XVI. DETHRONED" 12 j 

XVII. THE MEN OF KENT 129 

XVIII. COURTNEY 139 

XIX. NO CROSS, NO CROWN 145 

XX. CRANMER, LATIMER, RIDLEl 151 

XXI. WHITE ROSES 155 

XXII. PRINCESS MARGARET 162 

XXin. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 172 

XXIV. MONSIEUR CHARLES 180 

XXV. BISHOP OF ROSS , 188 

XXVI. MURDER OF NORTHUMBERLAND 194 

XXVII. PHILIP THE CONFESSOR 200 

XXVIII. MASS IN THE TOWER 208 

XXIX. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 217 

XXX. THE ARABELLA PLOT 226 

XXXI. RALEIGH'S WALK... 233 

XXXII. THE VILLAIN WAAD 237 

XXXIII. THE GARDEN-HOUSE 242 

XXXIV. THE BRICK TOWER 247 



HER MAJESTY'S TOWER 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PILE. 

HALF a mile below London Bridge, on ground which 
was once a bluff, commanding the Thames from St. 
Saviour's Creek to St. Olave's Wharf, stands the Tower ; a 
mass of ramparts, walls, and gates, the most ancient and 
most poetic pile in Europe. 

Seen from the hill outside, the Tower appears to be white 
with age and wrinkled by remorse. The home of our 
stoutest kings, the grave of our noblest knights, the scene 
of our gayest revels, the field of our darkest crimes, that 
edifice speaks at once to the eye and to the soul. Grey 
keep, green tree, black gate, and frowning battlement, 
stand out, apart from all objects far and near them, men- 
acing, picturesque, enchaining ; working on the senses like 
a spell; and calling us away from our daily mood into a 
world of romance, like that which we find painted in light 
and shadow on Shakspeare's page. 

Looking at the Tower as either a prison, a palace, or a 
court, picture, poetry, and drama crowd upon the mind ; 
and if the fancy dwells most frequently on the state prison, 
this is because the soul is more readily kindled by a human 
interest than fired by an archaic and oflicial fact. For one 
man who would care to see the room in which a council 
met or a court was held, a hundred men would like to see 
the chamber in which Lady Jane Grey was lodged, the cell 
in which Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, the tower from which 

A 2 



10 Her Majesty* s Toicer. 

Sir John Oldcastle escaped. Who would not like to stand 
for a moment by those steps on which Ann Boleyn knelt ; 
pause by that slit in the wall through which Arthur De la 
Pole gazed ; and linger, if he could, in that room in which 
Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley searched the ISTew Testament 
together ? 

The Tower has an attraction for us akin to that of the 
house in which we were born, the school in which we were 
trained. Go where we may, that grim old edifice on the 
Pool goes with us ; a part of all we know, and of all we 
are. Put seas between us and the Thames, this Tower w411 
cling to us, like a thing of life. It colours Shakspeare's 
page. It casts a momentary gloom over Bacon's story. 
Many of our books were written in its vaults ; the Duke 
of Orleans' 'Poesies,' Raleigh's 'Historic of the World,' 
Eliot's 'Monarchy of Man,' and Penn's 'No Cross, no 
Crown.' 

Even as to length of days, the Tower has no rival among 
palaces and prisons ; its origin, like that of the Iliad, that 
of the Sphinx, that of the Newton Stone, being lost in the 
nebulous ages, long before our definite history took shape. 
Old writers date it from the days of Caesar ; a legend taken 
up by Shakspeare and the poets, in favour of which the 
name of Caesar's tower remains in popular use to this very 
day. A Roman wall can even yet be traced near some 
parts of the ditch. The Tower is mentioned in the Saxon 
Chronicle, in a way not incompatible with the fact of a 
Saxon stronghold having stood upon this spot. The build- 
ings as we have them now in block and plan were com- 
menced by William the Conqueror ; and the series of apart- 
ments in Caesar's tower — hall, gallery, council- chamber, 
chapel — were built in the early Norman reigns, and used 
as a royal residence by all our Norman kings. What can 
Europe show to compare against such a tale ? 



The Pile. 11 

Set against the Tower of London — with its eight hundred 
years of historic life, its nineteen hundred years of tradi- 
tional fame — all other palaces and prisons appear like things 
of an hour. The oldest bit of palace in Europe, that of the 
west front of the Burg in Vienna, is of the time of Henry 
the Third. The Kremlin in Moscow, the Doge's Palazzo 
in Venice, are of the fourteenth century. The Seraglio in 
Stamboul was built by Mohammed the Second. The old- 
est part of the Vatican was commenced by Borgia, whose 
name it bears. The old Louvre was commenced in the 
reign of Henry the Eighth ; the Tuileries in that of Eliza- 
beth. In the time of our Civil War Versailles was yet a 
swamp. Sans Souci and the Escorial belong to the eight- 
eenth century. The Serail of Jerusalem is a Turkish edi- 
fice. The palaces of Athens, of Cairo, of Tehran, are all of 
modern date. 

Neither can the prisons which remain in fact as well as 
in history and drama — with the one exception of St. An- 
gelo in Rome — compare against the Tower. The Bastile 
is gone ; the Bargello has become a museum ; the Piombi 
are removed from the Doge's roof. Vincennes, Spandau, 
Spilberg, Magdeburg, are all modern in comparison with a 
jail from which Ralph Flambard escaped so long ago as 
the year 1100, the date of the First Crusade. 

Standing on Tower Hill, looking down on the dark lines 
of wall — picking out keep and turret, bastion and ballium, 
chapel and belfry — the jewel-house, the armoury, the 
mounts, the casemates, the open leads — the Bye-ward gate, 
the Belfry, the Bloody tower — the whole edifice seems 
alive with story ; the story of a nation's highest splendour, 
its deepest misery, and its darkest shame. The soil be- 
neath your feet is richer in blood than many a great battle- 
field ; for out upon this sod has been poured, from genera- 
tion to generation, a stream of the noblest life in our land. 



1 2 Her Majesty'' s Tower. 

Should you liave come to this spot alone, in the early day, 
Avhen the Tower is noisy with martial doings, you may 
haply catch, in the hum which rises from the ditch and 
issues from the wall below you — broken by roll of drum, 
by blast of bugle, by tramp of soldiers — some echoes, as it 
were, of a far-off* time ; some hints of a May-day revel ; of a 
state execution ; of a royal entry. You may catch some 
sound which recalls the thrum of a queen's virginal, the 
cry of a victim on the rack, the laughter of a bridal feast. 
For all these sights and sounds — the dance of love and the 
dance of death — are part of that gay and tragic memory 
which clings around the Tower. 

From the reign of Stephen down to that of Henry of 
Richmond, Caesar's tower (the great Norman keep, now 
called the White tower) was a main part of the royal pal- 
ace ; and for that large interval of time, the story of the 
"White tower is in some sort that of our English society as 
well as of our English kings. Here were kept the royal 
wardrobe and the royal jewels ; and hither came with their 
goodly wares, the tiremen, the goldsmiths, the chasers and 
embroiderers, from Flanders, Italy, and Almaigne. Close 
by were the Mint, the lions' dens, the old archery-grounds, 
the Court of King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, 
the Queen's gardens, the royal banqueting-hall ; so that art 
and trade, science and manners, literature and law, sport 
and politics, find themselves equally at home. 

Two great architects designed the main parts of the 
Tower : Gundulf the Weeper and Henry the Builder ; one 
a poor Norman monk, the other a great English king. 

Gundulf, a Benedictine friar, had, for that age, seen a 
great deal of the world ; for he had not only lived in Rou- 
en and Caen, but had travelled in the East. Familiar with 
the glories of Saracenic art, no less than with the Norman 
simplicities of Bee, St. Ouen, and St. Etienne ; a pupil of 



The Pile. 13 

Lanfranc, a friend of Anselm ; he had been employed in 
the monastery of Bee to marshal, with the eye of an artist, 
all the joictorial ceremonies of his church. But he was 
chiefly known in that convent as a weeper. No monk at 
Bee could cry so often and so much as Gundulf. He could 
weep with those who wept ; nay, he could weep with those 
who sported ; for his tears welled forth from what seemed 
to be an unfailing source. 

As the price of his exile from Bee, Gundulf received the 
crozier of Rochester, in which city he rebuilt the cathedral, 
and perhaps designed the castle, since the great keep on 
the Medway has a sister's likeness to the great keep on 
the Thames. His works in London were — the White tow- 
er, the first St. Peter's church, and the old barbican, after- 
wards known as the Hall tower, and now used as the Jewel 
house. 

The cost of these works was great ; the discontent caused 
by them was sore. Ralph, Bishop of Durham, the able and 
rapacious minister who had to raise the money, was hated 
and reviled by the Commons with peculiar bitterness of 
heart and phrase. He was called Flambard, or Firebrand. 
He was reiDresented as a devouring lion. Still the great 
edifice grew up ; and Gundulf, who lived to the age of 
fourscore, saw his great keep completed from basement to 
battlement. 

Henry the Third, a prince of epical fancies, as Corffe, 
Conway, Beaumaris, and many other fine poems in stone 
attest, not only spent much of his time in the Tower, but 
much of his money in adding to its beauty and strength. 
Adam de Lamburn was his master mason ; but Henry was 
his own chief clerk of the works. The Water gate, the 
embanked wharf, the Cradle tower, the Lantern, which he 
made his bedroom and private closet, the Galleyman tow- 
er, and the first wall, appear to have been his gifts. But 



14 Her Majestifs Tower. 

the prince who did so much for Westminster Abbey, not 
content with giving stone and piles to the home in which 
he dwelt, enriched the chambers with frescoes and sculp- 
ture, the chapels with carving and glass ; making St. John's 
chapel in the White tower splendid with saints, St. Peter's 
church on the Tower Green musical with bells. In the 
Hall tower, from which a passage led through the Great 
hall into the King's bedroom in the Lantern, he built a 
tiny chapel for his private use — a chapel which served for 
the devotion of his successors until Henry the Sixth was 
stabbed to death before the cross. Sparing neither skill 
nor gold to make the great fortress worthy of his art, he 
sent to Purbeck for marble, and to Caen for stone. The 
dabs of lime, the spawls of flint, the layers of brick, which 
deface the walls and towers in too many places, are of 
either earlier or later times. The marble shafts, the noble 
groins, the delicate traceries, are Henry's work. Traitor's 
gate, one of the noblest arches in the world, was built by 
him ; in short, nearly all that is purest in art is traceable 
to his reign. 

Edward the First may be added, at a distance, to the 
list of builders. In his reign the original church of St. 
Peter fell into ruin ; the wrecks were carted away, and the 
present edifice was built. The bill of costs for clearing the 
ground is still extant in Fetter Lane. Twelve men, who 
were paid twopence a-day wages, were employed on the 
work for twenty days. The cost of pulling down the old 
chapel was forty-six shillings and eight pence ; that of dig- 
ging foundations for the new chapel forty shillings. That 
chapel has suffered from wardens and lieutenants ; yet the 
shell is of very fine Norman work. 

From the days of Henry the Builder down to those of 
Henry of Richmond, the Tower, as the strongest place in 
the south of England, was by turns the magnificent home 



Inner Ward and Obiter Ward. 15 

and the miserable jail of all our princes. Here Richard the 
Second held his court, and gave up his crown. Here Henry 
the Sixth was murdered. Here the Duke of Clarence was 
drowned in wine. Here King Edward and the Duke of 
York were slain by command of Richard. Here Margaret 
of Salisbury suffered her tragic fate. 

Henry of Richmond kept his royal state in the Tower, 
receiving his ambassadors, counting his angels, making 
presents to his bride, Elizabeth of York. Among other 
gifts to that lady on her nuptial day was a Royal Book of 
verse, composed by a prisoner in the keep. 



CHAPTER H. 

INNER WARD AND OUTER WARD, 

The Tower was divided into two main parts — an Inner 
Ward and an Outer Ward ; the first part being bounded 
by the old wall, crowned by twelve mural towers ; the 
second part being bounded by the soil which fringed the 
slopes leading down into the ditch. A man who would 
read aright the many curious passages in our history of 
which the State Prison is the scene, must bear this fact of 
the two wards constantly in his mind. 

The Inner Ward, planned and partly built by the Monk 
of Bee, was the original fortress, of which the defending 
ditch lay under the ballium wall. It contained the keep, 
the royal galleries and rooms, the Mint, the Jewel house, 
the Wardrobe, the Queen's garden, St. Peter's Church, the 
open green, the Constable's tower, the Brick tower, in which 
the Master of the Ordnance lived, the Great hall, quarters 
for the archers and bowmen, and, in later days, the Lieu- 
tenant's house. This ward was flanked and covered by 
twelve strong works, built on the wall, and forming part 



16 Her Majesty's Toiver. 

of it ; the Beauchamp tower, the Belfry, the Garden tower 
(now famous as the Bloody tower), the Hall tower, the Lan- 
tern, the Salt tower, the Broad Arrow tower, the Constable 
tower, the Martin tower, the Brick tower, the Flint tower, 
the Bowyer tower, and the Develin tower ; all of which 
may be considered, more or less, as defensive works-; even 
the Lantern, which had a vault for prisoners on the ground, 
a royal bed-chamber on the main floor, a guard-room for 
archers and balisters in the upper story, and a round tur- 
ret over these for the burning lights. Only one gateway 
pierced the wall ; a narrow and embattled outlet near the 
Water gate, passing under the strong block house, now the 
Bloody tower, into Water Lane. The road springs upward 
by the main guard — a rise of one in ten — so as to give the 
men inside a vast advantage in a push of pikes. 

This Inner Ward was the royal quarter. 

The Outer Ward, which owed its plan and most of its 
execution to Henry the Third, lay between the ballium and 
the outer scarp of the ditch, with a protected passage into 
the Thames. It contained some lanes and streets below 
the wall, and works which overlooked the wharf. In this 
ward stood the Middle tower, the Bye-ward tower, the 
Water gate, the Cradle tower, the Well tower, the Galley- 
man tower, the Iron Gate tower. Brass Mount, Legge 
Mount, and the covered ways. Into it opened the Hall 
tower, afterwards called the Record tower, now known as 
the Jewel house. Close by the Hall tower stood the Great 
Hall, the doors of which opened into this outer court. 
Spanning the ditch, towards the Thames, stood the Water 
gate, a fine structure, built by Henry the Builder, which 
folk called St. Thomas's tower, after our Saxon saint. Un- 
der this building sprang the wide arch, through which the 
tides flowed in and out from the river and the ditch ; the 
water-way known as Traitor's gate. 



Imier Ward and Outer Ward. 17 

This Outer Ward was the folk's quarter. 

To the Inner Ward, common folk had no right of access, 
and they were rarely allowed to enjoy as a privilege that 
which they could not claim as a right. This Inner Ward 
was the King's castle, his palace, his garrison, his wardrobe, 
his treasury. Here, under charge of a trusty officer, he 
kept the royal jewels, secreted from every eye, except on a 
coronation day. Here rose his keep, with the dungeons in 
which he could chain his foes. Here stood his private 
chapel, and not far from it his private block. No man ever 
dreamt of contesting the King's right to do what he pleased 
in this quarter ; and thus, an execution within these lines 
was regarded by the world outside as little better than a 
private murder. 

Into the Outer Ward, the Commons had always claimed 
a right of entry, and something more than a right of entry; 
that is to say, free access, guarded by possession of the 
outer gates and towers. 

This right of entry was enforced on stated occasions 
with an observance which is highly comic. Baron and 
citizen — that is to say, alderman and commoner — met in 
Barking Church, on Tower Hill, whence they sent six sage 
men of their body into the Tower to ask leave for a depu- 
tation of citizens to see the king, and free access for all 
people to the courts of law. These six sage persons were 
to beg that the king, according to custom, would forbid 
his guards either to close the gates or to keep watch over 
them, while the citizens were coming and going ; it being 
wrong in itself and against their freedom, they alleged, for 
any one to keep guard over the gates and doors of the 
Tower, save such of their own people as they should ap- 
point to that duty. On this request being granted by the 
king, the six messengers would return to their fellows in 
Barking Church, report what they had done, and send the 



18 Her Majesty^ s Toioer. 

citizen guard to their posts. Then would the Commons 
elect from their body three men of mature age, moderate 
opinions, and cautious speech, to act as presenters. The 
rules by which they acted were rather strict. The sheriffs 
and beadles were to be decently clothed and shod, since it 
was laid down that no man should come before the king 
either in dirty rags or without his shoes. Their followers 
were to be trim and spruce; their capes and cloaks laid 
aside ; their coats and overcoats put on. No man was to 
go with them into the presence who had sore eyes ; no 
man was to join them who had weak legs. Mayor, alder- 
man, sheriff, cryer, every one going into the Tower on 
public duty, was to have his hair cut short and his face 
newly shaved. 

The object of these rules was to guard the right of ac- 
cess to the courts of justice; the Court of King's Bench, 
and the Court of Common Pleas. 

Where were these courts of justice held? 

No writer on the Tower has sought to find the true lo- 
calities of these great tribunals. Yet the sites are clearly 
enough described in our ancient writs, hundreds of which 
may be found in Fetter Lane. One court stood in the 
royal quarter, another court stood in the folk's quarter. 
The King's Bench was held in a room which the writs de- 
scribe as the Lesser Hall, lying under the east turret of the 
keep. The Common Pleas were held in a place which the 
writs describe as the Great hall by the river ; a hall now 
gone, but of which the identification is quite as sure. It 
stood by the Hall tower, to which it lent a name, and into 
which it led. 

A view of the Tower in the Royal Book of verse, shows 
that this Great Hall was a Gothic edifice, in the style of 
Henry the Third. 

Many a dark scene in the history of our public liberties 



Imier Ward and Outer Ward. - 19 

and our private manners grows suddenly luminous when 
we bear these facts in mind; that the Tower consisted of 
two Parts-an inner court and an outer court; that the 
Cour of King's Bench was held in the royal quarter, the 

S^h df"^''':" *'''°"'^ "l"^"^'-' t'atthe'peo! 
pie had free access to the outer court, and only to the out- 



er court. 



The Hall tower, m which Henry the Third had built a 
chapel for his private use, being an outer work, with doors 
and wmdows opening on the rampart and Water Lane 
could not be used as a prison for men of a dangerous class.' 
A feeble pnnce, like Henry the Sixth, who shrank from 
state and power, may have enjoyed a mild detention in the 
hall now sparkling with the crown jewels ; for he was soft- 
ly kept; and this tower was in his day a part of the royal 
palace. _ Old traditions make this room his cage; the scene 
of his pious meditations; and of his deliberate murder by 
the Duke of Gloucester. After Henry's death, if not be- 
tore, this tower was used as a paper office; for which pur- 
pose, as a hall adjoining the Court of Common Pleas 
and opening into the folk's quarter, it was well adapted.' 
Hence it came to be known as the Record tower 

On the wall above Water Lane, stood the two sio-nal 
towers, the Belfry and the Lantern; each surmounted by 
a turret ; of use to vessels coming up the Thames. ■ On the 
hist swung a bell; on the second burned a light. 



20 * Her Majestxfei Tower. 



CHAPTER in. 

THE WHARF. 

Turning through a sally-port m the Bye -ward gate, 
you cross the south area of the ditch, and come out on the 
Wharf; a strip of sand in front of the fortress, won from 
the river, and kept in its place by masonry and piles. This 
wharf, the work of Henry the Builder, is one of the won- 
ders of his reign ; for the whole strip of earth had to be 
seized from the Thames, and covered from the daily rav- 
age of its tides. Piles had to be driven into the mud and 
silt ; rubble had to be thrown in between these piles ; and 
then the whole mass united with fronts and bars of stone. 
All Adam de Lamburn's skill was taxed to resist the 
weight of water, yet keep the sluices open by which he 
fed the ditch. Most of all was this the case when the 
King began to build a new barbican athwart the sluice. 
This work, of which the proper name was for many ages 
the Water gate, commands the only outlet from the Tow- 
er into the Thames ; spanning the ditch and sweeping the 
wharf, both to the left and right. So soon as the wharf 
was taken from the river-bed, this work became essential 
to the defensive line. 

London folk felt none of the King's pride in the con- 
struction of this great wharf and barbican. In fact, these 
works were in the last degree unpopular, and on news of 
any mishap occurring to them the Commons went almost 
mad with joy. Once they sent to the King a formal com- 
plaint against these works. Henry assured his people that 
the wharf and Water gate would not harm their city. Still 



The Wharf. 21 

the citizens felt sore. Then, on St. George's night (1240), 
while the people were at prayer, the Water gate and wall 
fell down, no man knew why. No doubt the tides were 
high that spring, and the soft silt of the river gave way 
beneath the wash. Anyhow they fell. 

Henry, too great a builder to despair, began again ; this 
time with a better plan ; yet on the self-same night of the 
ensuing year his barbican crashed down into the river, one 
mass of stones. A monk of St. Alban's, who tells the tale, 
asserts that a priest who was passing near the fortress saw 
the sj)irit of an archbishop, dressed in his robes, holding a 
cross, and attended by the spirit of a clerk, gazing sternly 
on these new works. As the priest came up, the figure 
spake to the masons, ' Why build ye these ?' As he spake, 
he struck the walls sharply with the holy cross, on which 
they reeled and sank into the river, leaving a wreath of 
smoke behind. The priest was too much scared to accost 
the more potent spirit ; but he turned to the humble clerk, 
and asked him the Archbishop's name. ' St. Thomas the 
Martyr,' said the shade. The priest, growing bolder, asked 
him why the Martyr had done this deed ? * St. Thomas,' 
said the spirit, ' by birth a citizen, mislikes these works, be- 
cause they are raised in scorn, and against the public right. 
For this cause he has thrown them down beyond the ty- 
rant's power to restore them.' 

But the shade was not strong enough to scare the King. 
Twelve thousand marks had been spent on that heap of 
ruins ; yet the barbican being necessary to his wharf, the 
builder, on the morrow of his second mishap, was again at 
work, clearing away the rubbish, driving in the piles, and 
laying in a deeper bed the foundation stones. This time 
his work was done so well that the walls of his gateway 
have never shrunk, and are as firm to-day as the earth on 
which they stand. 



22 Her Majesty's Toioer. 

The ghost informed the priest that the two most popu- 
lar saints in our calendar, the Confessor and the Martyr, 
had undertaken to make war upon these walls. ' Had they 
been built,' said the shade, * for the defence of London, and 
in order to find food for masons and joiners, they might 
have been borne ; but they are built against the poor citi- 
zens ; and if St. Thomas had not destroyed them, the Con- 
fessor would have swept them away.' 

The names of these popular saints still cling to the Wa- 
ter gate. One of the rooms, fitted up as an oratory, and 
having a piscina still perfect, is called the Confessor's Chap- 
el; and the barbican itself, instead of bearing its oificial 
name of Water gate, is only known as St. Thomas's tower. 

The whole wharf, twelve hundred feet in length, lay 
open to the Thames, except a patch of ground at the lower 
end, near the Iron gate, leading towards the hospital of St. 
Catharine the Virgin, where a few sheds and magazines 
were built at an early date. Except these sheds, the wharf 
was clear. When cannon came into use, they were laid 
alons the ground, as well as trained on the walls and the 
mural towers. 

Three accents marked, as it were, the river front — the 
Queen's stair, the Water way, and the Galleyman stair. 
The Queen's stair, the landing-place of royal princes, and 
of such great persons as came to the Tower on state af- 
fairs, lay beneath the Bye-ward gate and the Belfry, having 
a passage into the fortress by a bridge and postern, through 
the Bye-ward tower into Water Lane. The Water way 
was that cutting through the bank which passed under St. 
Thomas's tower to the flight of steps in Water Lane ; the 
entrance popularly known as Traitor's gate. The Galley- 
man stair lay under the Cradle tower, by which there was 
a private entrance into the royal quarter. This stair was 
not much used, except when the services of Traitor's gate 



The Wharf. 23 

were out of order. Then prisoners who could not enter by 
the approach of honour were landed at the Galleyman stair. 

Lying open to the river and to the streets, the wharf 
was a promenade, a place of traffic and of recreation, to 
which folk resorted on high days and fair days. Men who 
loved sights were pretty sure to find something worth see- 
ing at either the Queen's stair or Traitor's gate. All per- 
sonages coming to the Tower in honour were landed at the 
Queen's stair ; all personages coming in disgrace were 
pushed through the Traitor's gate. Now, a royal barge, 
with a queen on board, was going forth in her bravery of 
gold and pennons ; now a Lieutenant's boat, returning with 
a culprit in the stern, a headsman standing at his side, hold- 
ing in his hand the fatal axe. 

Standing on the bank, now busy with a new life, these 
pictures of an old time start into being like a mystic writ- 
ing on the wall. Two of these scenes come back with warm 
rich colouring to the inner eye. 

Now: — it is London in the reign of that Henry the 
Builder, who loved to adorn the fortress in which he dwelt. 
Whose barge is moored at yon stair, with the royal arms ? 
What men are those with tabard and clarion? Who is 
that proud and beautiful woman, her fair face fired with 
rage, who steps into her galley, but whose foot appears to 
scorn the plank on which it treads ? She is the Queen ; 
wife of the great builder; Elinor of Provence, called by 
her minstrels Elinor la Belle. A poetess, a friend of sing- 
ers, a lover of music, she is said to have brought song and 
art into the English court from her native land. The first 
of our laureates came in her train. She has flushed the 
palace with jest and joust, with tinkle of citherns, with 
clang of horns. But the Queen has faults, for which her 
gracious talent and her peerless beauty fail to atone. Her 
greed is high, her anger ruthless. Her court is filled witli 



24 Her Majesty'' s Tower. 

an outcry of merchants who have been mulcted of queen- 
geld, a wrangle of friars who have been robbed by her kith 
and kin, a roar of tiremen and jewellers clamorous for their 
debts, a murmur of knights and barons protesting against 
her loans, a clatter of poor Jews objecting to be spoiled. 
Despite her gifts of birth and wit, Elinor la Belle is the 
most unpopular princess in the world. She has been living 
at the Tower, which her husband loves ; but she feels that 
her palace is a kind of jail; she wishes to get away, and 
she has sent for her barge and watermen, hoping to escape 
from her people and to breathe the free air of her Windsor 
home. 

Will the Commons let her go ? Proudly her barge puts 
off. The tabards bend and the clarions blare. But the 
Commons, who wait her coming on London Bridge, dis- 
pute her passage and drive her back with curses, crying, 
' Drown the witch ! Drown the witch !' Unable to pass 
the bridge, Elinor has to turn her keel, and, with passionate 
rage in her heart, to find her way back. 

Her son, the young and fiery Edward, never forgets this 
insult to his mother ; by-and-bye he will seek revenge for 
it on Lewes field ; and by mad pursuit of his revenge, he 
will lose the great fight and imperil his father's crown. 

Again : — it is London in the reign of Bluff King Hal — 
the husband of two fair wives. The river is alive with 
boats ; the air is white with smoke ; the sun overhead is 
burning with golden May. Thousands on thousands of 
spectators dot the banks; for to-day a bride is coming 
home to the King, the beauty of whose face sets old men's 
fancies and young men's eyes agog. On the wharf, near 
the Queen's stair, stands a burly figure ; tall beyond com- 
mon men ; broad in chest and strong in limb ; dressed in a 
doublet of gold and crimson, a cap and plume, shoes with 
rosettes and diamonds, a hanger by his side, a George upon 



The Wharf. 25 

his breast. It is the King, surrounded by dukes and earls, 
awaiting the arrival of a barge, in the midst of blaring 
trumj^ets and exploding sakers. A procession sweeps 
along ; stealing up from Greenwich, with plashing oars 
and merry strains ; fifty great boats, with a host of wher- 
ries on their flanks ; a vessel firing guns in front, and a 
long arrear of craft behind. 

From the first barge lands the Lord Mayor; from the 
second trips the bride ; from the rest stream out the pic- 
turesque City Companies. Cannons- roar, and bells fling 
put, a welcome to the Queen ; for this is not simply a great 
day in the story of one lovely woman ; but a great day in 
the story of English life. Now is the morning time of a 
new era ; for on this bright May — 

' The gospel light first shines from Bolejm's eyes,' 

and men go mad with hope of things which are yet to 
come. 

The King catches that fair young bride in his arms, 
kisses her soft cheek, and bears her in, through the Bye- 
ward Tower. 

The picture fades from view, and presently reappears. 
Is it the same? The Queen — the stair — the barge — the 
crowd of men — all these are here. Yet the picture is not 
the same. No burly Henry stands by the stair ; no guns 
disturb the sky ; no blast of trumpets greets the royal 
barge ; no train of aldermen and masters waits upon the 
Queen. The lovely face looks older by a dozen years ; yet 
scarcely three have passed since that fair form was clasped 
in the King's arms, kissed, and carried by the bridge. 
This time she is a prisoner, charged with having done such 
things as pen cannot write ; things which would be trea- 
son, not to her lord only, but to her womanhood, and to 
the Kin or of kino; s. 

B 



26 Her Majesty'' s Toioer. 

When she alights on the Queen's stair, she turns to Sir 
William Kingston, Constable of the Tower, and asks, 
* Must I go into a dungeon T * No, madam,' says the Con- 
stable ; * you will lie in the same room which you occupied 
before.' She falls on her knees. ' It is too good for me,' she 
cries; and then weeps for a long time, lying on the cold 
stones, with all the people standing by in tears. She begs 
to have the sacrament in her own room, that she may pray 
with a pure heart; saying, she is free from sin, and that 
she is, and has always been, the King's true wedded wife. 

* Shall I die without justice?' she inquires. 'Madam,' 
says Kingston, ' the poorest subject would have justice.' 
The lady only laughs a feeble laugh. 

Other, and not less tragic, scenes drew crowds to the 
Water-way from the Thames. 

Beneath this arch has moved a long procession of our 
proudest jDcers, our fairest women, our bravest soldiers, 
our wittiest poets — Buckingham and Strafford ; Lady Jane 
Grey, the Princess Elizabeth; William Wallace, David 
Bruce; Surrey, Raleigh — names in which the splendour, 
poetry, and sentiment of our national story are embalmed. 
Most of them left it, high in rank and rich in life, to return, 
by the same dark passage, in a few brief hours, poorer 
than the beggars who stood shivering on the bank ; in the 
eyes of the law, and in the words of their fellows, already 
dead. 

From this gateway went the barge of that Duke of 
Buckingham, the rival of Wolsey, the last permanent High 
Constable of England. Buckingham had not dreamed 
that an offence so slight as his could bring into the dust so 
proud a head ; for his offence was nothing ; some silly 
words which he had bandied lightly in the Rose, a City 
tavern, about the young king's journey into France. He 
could not see that his head was struck because it moved so 



The Wharf, 27 

high; nay, his proud boast that if his enemies sent him to 
the Tower, ten thousand friends would storm the walls to 
set him free, was perhaps the occasion of his fall. When 
sentence of death was given, he marched back to his 
barge, where Sir Thomas Lovel, then Constable, stood 
ready to hand him to the seat of honour. ' Nay,' said the 
Duke to Lovel, ' not so now. When I came to Westmin- 
ster I was Lord High Constable and Duke of Buckingham ; 
now I am but poor Edward Stafford. 

Landed at the Temple stair, he was marched along Fleet 
street, through St. Paul's Churchyard, and byway of Cheap 
to the Tower ; the axe borne before him all the way ; Sir 
William Sandys holding him by the right arm. Sir Nicho- 
las Yaux by the left. A band of Augustine friars stood 
praying round the block; and when his head had fallen 
into the dust they bore his remains to St. Austin's Church. 

On these steps, too, beneath this Water-gate, Elizabeth, 
then a young fair girl, with gentle, feminine face and gold- 
en hair, was landed by her jealous sister's servants. The 
day was Sunday — Palm Sunday — with a cold March rain 
coming down, and splashing the stones with mud. She 
could not land without soiling her feet and clothes, and for 
a moment she refused to leave her barge. Sir John Gage, 
the Constable, and his guards, stood by to receive her. 
' Are all these harnessed men for me ?' she asked. ^ No, 
madam,' said Sir John. ' Yea,' she replied, ' I know it is so.' 
Then she stood up in her boat and leaped on shore. As 
she set foot on the stone steps, she exclaimed, in a spirit 
prouder than her looks — for in her youth she had none of 
that leonine beauty of her later years — ' Here landeth as 
true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed at these 
stairs ; and before Thee, O God, I speak it.' Perhaps she 
was thinking of her mother, who had landed on the neigh- 
bourinsT wharf. Anne had fallen on her knees on these 



28 Her Majesty's Toioer. 

cold stones, and here had called on God to helj) her, as she 
was not guilty of the things of which she stood accused. 
In those two attitudes of appeal one reads the nature of 
these two proud and gentle women, each calling Heaven 
to witness her innocence of crime — Elizabeth defiant, erect ; 
Anne suppliant, on her knees. 



CHAPTER IV. 

EIVER EIGHTS. 

The wharf has story of another kind. 

Under our Plantagenet kings, the English folk — then 
called in derision the 'Englishry,' just as under our Tudor 
kings the Irish kernes were called in derision the ' Irishry' 
— claimed the right of going into the ToAver, when they 
wished, to make complaint either to the king or to his 
judges, of any wrong from which they suffered. One of 
the king's ofiicers, the Tower warden, was a man with ex- 
tensive powers, and a hundred archers at his back. A sub- 
ject always in dispute between this officer and the city folk 
was a claim put forth by him, to catch fish in what the 
Commons called an unfair way. The warden claimed a 
right to put kidels in the w^ater, not only in front of the 
wharf, but in any other part of the stream. Now a kidel 
was a weir, filled up with nets, which caught all fish com- 
ing down with the tide, both the small fry and the old flap- 
pers. What free angler could stand this claim ? Through 
five or six reigns our fathers fought against this abuse; 
and the question of a warden's right to put kidels in the 
Thames was a topic which roused the water-side folk into 
fiercer passion than reports of fighting in Picardy and pil- 
grimage in the Holy Land. 



River Mights. 29 

A kidel in front of the wharf was an outrage as well as 
an injury. Our fathers loved the rod and line. Hundreds 
of years before Izaac quaffed the village ale and listened to 
the milkmaid's song, his foregoers had been wont to cast 
their lines into the Lea, the Wandle, and the Thames. 
Nor was the gentle craft pursued by them in sport alone. 
Fish was an article of food ; the fisheries on the Thames 
being large enough to employ, and rich enough to feed, a 
tenth of the population on its banks ; and to all these pleas- 
ures and profits, the right of a Tower warden to net the 
stream with kidels was a serious bar. The water- side tav- 
erns were up in arms, when these water-side taverns were 
the meeting-houses of all our turbulent and daring spirits. 
They had, indeed, good reason for their wrath ; since the 
king's warden, not content with setting his own kidels in 
the Thames, rented to others his privilege of interfering 
with honest sport and decent trade. For a small sum of 
money any rascal on the river could buy his license, and 
set up kidels in the Lea and in the Medway as well as in 
the Thames. The effect of netting these rivers was to de- 
stroy the salmon and shad, as well as to capture the flound- 
er and the trout. 

Now and then, a prince in his distress consented to fore- 
go this river right ; but his warden took scant notice of a 
pledge which he thought injurious to his pocket and de- 
rogatory to his prince. 

Lion Heart strove to bring this quarrel to an end ; and, 
in the eighth year of his reign, in the press of a sharp war, 
he made what he said was a high sacrifice in giving up 
kidels, and putting his warden of the Tower on a level with 
humbler and fairer folk. For this surrender Lion Heart 
expected to be paid, not only in earthly coin, but in heav- 
enly grace. Li the grant, by which he gave the public 
their own, he declared that — for the salvation of his soul, 



30 Her Majesty's Tower. 

for the salvation of his father's soul, and for the salvation 
of the souls of all his ancestors, as well as for the benefit 
of his people and the peace of his realm — no more kidels 
should be set up in the Thames. 

But Lion heart failed to keep his pledge. The warden 
was always nigh; the king w^as often far away; and the 
kidel question helped to keep alive the long resistance to 
King John. 

In the Great Charter there was a special clause on kid- 
els ; King John consenting, among other things, that, under 
pain of excommunication, all kidels should be removed 
from the Thames and from his other streams. Yet the 
warden, paying scant attention to a parchment which he 
probably could not read, laid down his weirs and nets as 
before, only desisting for a time when the SheriflT of Lon- 
don, backed by an armed band, dropped down the river 
and seized his nets. 

One fight was made by the London folk in the reign of 
Henry the Third, in behalf of sport and trade, which be- 
came famous in City story, and got a niche in every old 
chronicle and in many a popular song. 

Complaints w^ere laid before Andrew Buckrell, Mayor, 
Henry de Cotham, Sheriff, and other magistrates, that many 
new kidels had been laid in the Thames and the Medway, 
by authority of the Tower warden, contrary to the City 
franchise, and to the great injury of the common people. 
More than elsewhere this wrong was being done to them 
in the neighbourhood of Yantlet Creek. This was a tick- 
lish thing ; for although the Thames lay under the juris- 
diction of London for many purposes, it was not clear that 
the Mayor and a City band had any right to pursue of- 
fenders up the Medway, and to seize them under the walls 
of Rochester Castle. They put their right to the test. 
Jordan de Coventry, second sheriff, with a body of men, 



Hiver Bights. 31 

well armed and resolute, started, on the 6th of January, 
1236-7, for Yantlet Creek, where they fell suddenly and 
stoutly on the master fishermen and their servants. They 
found no less than thirty kidels beyond that creek towards 
the sea. With little ado they tore up the nets and seized 
the masters ; Joscelyn and four good men of Rochester ; 
seven good men of Strood ; three good men of Cliff, all 
master-mariners, with nine others, their helpers and abet- 
tors in the wrong. 

Jordan brought these captured nets and culprits up to 
London, where he gave the nets to the first sheriff, and 
lodged the master-mariners in Newgate. 

When the news of this raid reached Rochester, Strood, 
and Cliff, much din arose, and men from these towns rode 
up to London to see what could be done for Joscelyn and 
his fellows. They applied to the King for help, on the 
ground that no man had power to seize the King's sub- 
jects by force, and cast them into jail, without his license. 
Henry inclined to take this view ; but the mayor and sher- 
iffs maintained their right to arrest offenders against the 
King's laws and the City franchises. Being then absent 
from London, Henry sent a writ to the mayor command- 
ing him to accept bail for the appearance of his prisoners, 
until such time as the King could hold a court to try the 
case. 

This court was called in the Palace of Kennington; 
when Buckrell and the citizens, Joscelyn and the master- 
mariners, appeared before the Archbishop of York, the 
Lord Chancellor, and other great personages, among whom 
the most eminent was William de Raleigh, the famous jus- 
ticiar, a collateral ancestor of Sir Walter. 

William de Raleigh, who held a brief, as it were, for the 
Crown, put Buckrell and his men on their mettle. ' How,' 
he asked them, ' had they, with such rash daring, seized the 



32 Her 3Iajesti/s Tov^er. 

king's liegemen in their boats, and cast them into a com- 
mon jail?' Buckrell answered him: 'that he had seized 
Joscelyn and the rest for just reasons: because, being tak- 
en in the act of using kidels, they were infringing the 
rights of the City, lessening the dignity of the Crown, and 
incurring the ban of excommunication, in accordance with 
an express clause in the Great Charter.' He asked, in con- 
clusion, that the judges should enforce the law, and punish 
the master-mariners by a heavy fine. 

William de Raleigh took this view of the kidel business, 
and his verdict gave immense delight at Guildhall. He 
sentenced Joscelyn and the other masters to pay a fine of 
ten pounds each — the fines to be rendered to the chief men 
in the City. 

A great fire was lighted in Westcheape, and the cap- 
tured nets from Yantlet Creek were burned in presence of 
a joyful crowd. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE WHITE TOWNER. 



The shell of the White tower, ninety feet high, from 
twelve to fifteen feet thick, is in four tiers, without reckon- 
ing the leads and turrets: (l) the vaults ; (2) the main floor; 
(3) the banqueting floor; (4) the state floor. Each tier 
contains three rooms ; not to count the stairs, corridors, 
and chambers which are sunk into the solid wall ; a west 
room, extending from north to south, the whole length of 
the tower ; an east room, lying parallel to the first ; and a 
cross chamber, occupying the south-west corner of the pile. 
These rooms are parted from each other by walls, not less 
than ten feet thick, which rise from the foundation to the 
roof On each angle of the tower stands a turret, one of 



The White Tower. 33 

which is round. The parapet is pierced for defendino- 
fire. 

(1.) The vaults lie underground, with no stairs and 
doors of their own. Some piercings in the shell let in a 
little air and still less light. These vaults were the old 
dungeons of the keep— the home of pirates, rebels, and per- 
secuted Jews. One of these rooms, the cross chamber, is 
darker and damper than the other two. It was called Lit- 
tle Ease, and is, in fact, a crypt beneath a crypt. When 
the Tower was full of prisoners, these vaults were used as 
prison lodgings, even in the Tudor and Stuart times. A 
few inscriptions can still be traced in the stone ; one of 
which is that of Fisher, a Jesuit Father who was con- 
cerned in the Powder Plot. 

SACRIS VESTIBUS INDUTUS 
DUM SACRA HYSTERIA 
SERVANS, CAPTUS ET IN 
HOC ANGUSTO CARCERE 
INCLUSUS. I. FISHER. 

There is some ground for believing that Little Ease was 
the lodging of Guy Fawkes. 

Out of the north-east vault a door opens into a secret 
hole, built for some purpose in the dividing wall— a cell in 
which there is neither breath of air nor ray of light. By 
a rule of the Tower which assigns every mysterious room 
to Raleigh, this vault is called Walter Raleigh's cell. 

(2.) The main floor consists of two large rooms, and the 
crypt. This tier was the garrison stage ; held by the 
King's guards, who fought with halberds and pikes. The 
crypt, a lofty and noble room, was occasionally used as a 
prison. Two niches have been scooped from the solid wall ; 
one of them larger than the other ; and this niche is also 
called Raleigh's cell. Of course, he was never in it. May 

B2 



34 Her Majesty's Tower. 

it not have been that * secret jewel-room in the White tow- 
er' of which we read so often in the royal books ? On the 
jambs of this room a man may read these words and dates : 

HE THAT INDURETH TO THE ENDE 
SHALL BE SAVID. 
M. lo. 

R. RUDSTON. 

DAR. KENT. ANo. 1553. 

This is the work of Robert Rudston, of Dartford. An- 
other writing on the wall runs thus : 

BE FAITHFUL UNTO THE DETH AND I WILL 
GIVE THEE A CROAVNE OF LIFE. 

T. FANE. 1554. 

Below the second inscription comes the name — 
T. CULPEPPER OF DARFORD. 

These three prisoners were taken, with their Captain, Sir 
Thomas Wyat, in the Rising of the Men of Kent. 

(3.) The banqueting floor was a part of the royal palace, 
though not of the personal and domestic part. The long 
room was the banqueting-hall, and is noticeable as being 
the only room in the Keep provided with a fire-place. The 
cross chamber was the chapel of St. John the Evangelist, 
which occupied two tiers of the Keep. Most of our royal 
and princely captives lived in these apartments — men like 
Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham ; Griffin, Prince of 
Wales ; John de Baliol, King of Scots ; Prince Charles of 
France, the famous troubadour. 

(4.) The state floor contained the great council-chamber ; 
a smaller room called the Lesser hall, in which the justic- 
iars sat ; and the galleries of St. John's chapel, from which 
there was a passage into the royal apartments. 

The roof was flat, with oaken supports and bands of 



The White Tower. 35 

enormous strength. The council - chamber beneath it is 
one of the marvels of early English construction ; being 
strong enough to bear not only the balisters and bowmen 
for whom it was built, but the sakers and carronades which 
came into use in a later reign. One of the four turrets, 
round, and larger than the rest, was added as a watch- 
tower. In early times this round turret was the prison of 
Maud the Fair ; in later times it was an observatory, from 
which Flamsteed outwatched the stars. 

The most surprising feature in Gundulf's keep is the 
scanty means of access. He seems to have given it only 
one door, and that so narrow, that a man marching through 
the corridor filled it up. The vaults had no entrance from 
without ; and no means of communication with the upj^er 
tiers except by one well-stair. The main-floor had no way 
either up or down except by the same well-stair, which 
could only be approached through a passage built in the 
wall. The upper tiers had other stairs, so that people could 
pass from the banqueting-hall to the council-chamber and 
the parapets with comparative ease ; but the communica- 
tions of those lower tiers could be stopped by the halberds 
of three or four resolute men. 

Yet Gundulf's castle on the Thames was not a safe pris- 
on for daring and ingenious men. The first offender ever 
lodged within its walls contrived to escape from his guards, 
to let himself down from a window, and to slip through the 
postern to his boat. This bold offender was that Ralph of 
Durham, called the Firebrand and the Lion, who for many 
years had been treasurer and justiciar to the Norman 
kings. On the death of Rufus he was seized by the Com- 
mons until the new king's pleasure should be known about 
him ; and Henry the Scholar, who had good deeds rather 
than good rights to befriend him in his contest with Rob- 
ert for the crown, sent the unpopular prelate to the Tower. 



36 Her Majesty's Toicer. 

Henry was not inclined to harshness ; and Ralph, though 
lodged in the keep which he had helped to build, was treat- 
ed like a guest. He lived in the upper rooms, on the tier 
now known as the banqueting-floor ; his rooms having plen- 
ty of space and light, a good fire-place, a private closet, and 
free access to St. John's chapel. William de Mandeville, 
Constable of the Tower, was appointed his keeper, and two 
shillings a-day were paid from the King's exchequer for 
his diet. He was suifered to have his own servants and 
chaplains in his rooms, and to send out for such wines and 
meats as his stomach craved and his purse could buy. One 
of the richest men in England, he could buy a good deal ; 
one of the cleverest men in England, he could scheme a 
long way. But before resorting to his money and his wits 
in self-defence, Ralph tried how far he could reckon on the 
virtues of his pastoral staff. A bishop was not only a baron 
of the realm, but a prince of the universal Church. No 
doubt he had exercised lay functions ; acting as a financier, 
sitting as a judge; but still he was a priest, on whom sec- 
ular laws were held to have no binding force. On this 
ground he appealed to Anselm, then Lord Primate, as to 
his brother and his chief. Anselm, who had just come 
back from that exile into which he had been driven by 
Ralph and his master, was in no saintly humour. *" Out on 
this caitiff,' cried the Lord Primate, * I know him not, nei- 
ther as brother nor as priest.' Anselm took the part of 
Henry, whom his flock was beginning to call Gaft'er Good- 
rich, and to love with exceeding warmth on account of 
Goody Maud, the young Saxon princess whom he had taken 
from a convent to make his wife. 

Failing in this appeal, Ralph took counsel with his wits. 
The stout Norman knights who kept guard in his chamber 
were jolly fellows, fond of good cheer and lusty at a song. 
On this weakness he began to play. Sending for good 



The White Tower. 37 

wine, and giving orders to his cook, he invited to his table 
a belt of boisterous knights. When folks looked up at the 
keep, in which their enemy was caged, they saw lights in 
the windows rather late, and haply went to bed in the 
pious hope that their bad bishop was going quickly to 
his doom. At length his scheme was ripe. Asking the 
knights to supper, he sent out for jars of wine ; a potent 
liquor which, in due time, laid those Avarriors asleep on 
bench and floor. The time was winter (the date February, 
1101), and night came down quickly on the Tower. When 
the guards were all drunk, the sober bishop rose from his 
table, drew a long coil of rope from one of the jars, passed 
into the South room, tied his cord to the window shaft, and 
taking his crozier with him, let himself down. He was a 
fat, heavy man ; the cord was rather short, and he fell some 
feet to the ground. But trusty servants who were in wait- 
ing, picked him up, and hurried him away into a boat, by 
which he escaped, with his staff and his money to France. 

The window from which he escajoed is sixty-five feet 
from the ground. 

In the reign of King John, the White tower received one 
of the first and fairest of a long line of female victims, in 
that Maud Fitzwalter, who was known to the singers of 
her time as Maud the Fair. The father of this beautiful 
girl was Robert, Lord Fitzwalter, of Castle Baynard on the 
Thames, one of John's greatest barons ; yet the King, dur- 
ing a fit of violence with his Queen, Isabella of Angouleme, 
fell madly into love with this young girl. As neither the 
lady herself nor her powerful sire would listen to his dis- 
graceful suit, the King is said to have seized her at Dun- 
mow by force, and brought her to the Tower. Fitzwalter 
raised an outcry, on which the King sent troops into Castle 
Baynard and his other houses ; and when the baron pro- 
tested against these wrongs, his master banished him from 



38 liar Majesty^ s Tower. 

the realm. Fitzwalter fled to France, with his wife and 
his other children, leaving his daughter Maud in the Tower, 
where she suffered a daily insult in the King's unlawful 
suit. On her proud and scornful answer to his passion 
being heard, John carried her up to the roof, and locked 
her in the round turret, standing on the north-east angle of 
the keep. Maud's cage was the highest, chilliest den in 
the Tower; but neither cold, nor solitude, nor hunger, could 
break her strength. In the rage of his disappointed love, 
the King sent one of his minions to her room with a poi- 
soned egg, of which the brave girl ate, and died. 

Her father now returned to England; put himself in 
front of the great revolt of prelates and nobles ; took com- 
mand of the insurgent forces, who hailed him proudly as 
Marshal of the army of God and Holy Church. Fitzwalter 
fought against John, until the tyrant, bending before his 
outraged people, signed the Great Charter of our liberties 
at Runnymede. 

Maud was buried in the abbey of Dunmow. Her father 
took possession of the Tower as a pledge ; at a later time 
he went forth as a Crusader ; and died at Damietta, fight- 
ing for the Tomb of Christ. 

At a distance of fifty years, the Banqueting hall received 
two royal tenants in John de Baliol and David Bruce. 

After the hot encounter at Dunbar, Baliol yielded his 
crown and kingdom to Edward the First, who returned to 
London, bringing with him, not only his royal captive, but 
Prince Edward of Scotland, a host of noble chiefs, the Scot- 
tish crown and sceptre, and that stone of destiny which 
lies in Westminster Abbey, the seat of our English kings. 
David, son of the famous Robert Bruce, was taken prisoner 
by Queen Philippa at the battle of Neville's Cross. 

Among old papers in the Record Oflice is a book of ac- 
count, kept by Ralph de Sandwich, Constable of the Tower, 



The White Tower. 39 

during the confinement of John de Baliol, from which we 
get some glimpses into his household life in the White 
tower. Payments are made to Dominus William his chap- 
lain ; to Master Adam his tailor ; to Richard his pantler, 
and to Henry his butler ; to Chy ware and Gautrier his two 
chamberlains; to Peter his barber; to Henry his clerk of 
the chapel. The household was large ; including a stall 
of horses and a pack of dogs ; and the expense was fixed 
by King Edward's council at seventeen shillings a day. 
After a while, one esquire, one huntsman, one page, one 
barber, two greyhounds, ten beagles, and one horse were 
sent away ; reducing the daily cost to the country by half- 
a-crown. The Scottish King had still one chaplain, two 
esquires, two grooms of the chamber, three pages, one 
barber, one tailor, one laundress, one butler, and one pant- 
ler. Baliol remained in the White tower for 189 days, 
after which he was given up to John de Pontissera, Papal 
Nuncio and Bishop of Winchester, on the understanding 
that he would in future reside abroad. 

GriflSn, Prince of Wales, a man who had been yielded 
into Henry the Builder's power by his own brother. Prince 
David, was lodged in the upper room from which Flambard 
was known to have escaped. Grifiin, who was a fat man, 
like Flambard, thought a soldier should be able to do what 
a priest had done. Tearing his bed-clothes into shreds, he 
twisted them into a rope, by means of which he hoped to 
lower himself to the ground ; but the clothes would not 
bear his weight ; the coil snapped as he was slipping down ; 
he broke his neck in the fall, and was killed on the spot. 
He seems to have found no means of getting from Flam- 
bard's window, and to have tried his chance of dropping 
some ninety feet from the leads. In the margin of Matthew 
Paris' beautiful copy of his own Ilistoria Anglorum^ there 
is a drawino^ of Griftin's fall. The coil of bed-linen is fast- 



40 Her Majesty^s Tower, 

ened to the parapet on the roof. Matthew, who was living 
at the time, and often in London, must have known how 
the Welsh prince came by his death. Griffin's son, then a 
mere child, was left a prisoner in the Tower. A few years 
later the young prince got away, when he returned to 
Wales, regained his principality, and fought with despe-' 
rate valour against his English foes. Slain in the reign of 
Edward Longshanks, his head was brought to London, and 
fixed upon the turret, from which his father had fallen into 
his grave. 

Edward the Second and his Queen, Isabella the Fair, 
kept a splendid, riotous court in the Tower, enlivened by 
love and war, by political quarrels, by religious festivals, 
and criminal intrigues. Here the princess known in story 
as Joanna de la Tour was born. The royal apartments in 
which the mother lay were so worn and rent, that the ram 
came rattling through the rafters into her bed ; and John 
de Cromwell, then Constable, was dismissed from office for 
this neglect, and for other offences against his lord and 
lady. When Edward went away from London, on his 
wars and other follies, the fair Isabella ruffled her indolent 
mood by receiving visits in her chamber from Roger Mor- 
timer, the handsome and reckless Border chief, who was 
then a prisoner in the keep. Mortimer got into the kitch- 
en, crept up the kitchen chimney, and came out on the 
roof, from which he escaped to the river, and so away into 
France. It is an old story : you can easily break prison 
when you have fallen in love with the jailor's wife. Queen 
Isabella and Mortimer were not long apart. Every one is 
familiar with the tale of their guilty passion, their stormy 
career, their tragic end ; the most singular episode in the 
history of our royal race. 



Charles of Orleans. 41 



CHAPTER VI. 

CHARLES OF ORLEANS. 

Of the captives wlio have helped to make this Banquet- 
ing hall a place of poetic memories, the most engaging is 
Prince Charles of Orleans, the unhapj^y troubadour. This 
young French prince, grandson of Charles the Fifth, father 
of Louis the Twelfth, — a soldier, a poet, a politician, — one 
of the chief commanders of the French chivalry, fell, to- 
gether with a host of princes and nobles, into the hands of 
Harry of Monmouth, on the field of Agincourt. 

Charles's life is an epic of love and war, of glory and 
defeat, of suffering and resignation. Nature and events 
conspired to throw the conquering Harry and the captive 
Charles into opposite lists. Not only were they enemies 
in the field, but rivals in love. The Prince's father, Louis 
of Orleans, and the King's father, Henry of Lancaster, had 
each affected to consider himself heir to the crown of 
France ; a splendid claim, which came down, in time, to 
their sons. Louis of Orleans, making himself the cham- 
pion of a royal and unhappy lady, Isabella of Yalois, Queen 
of England, widow of Richard the Second, had sent a chal- 
lenge to Henry of Lancaster, as he contemptuously called 
the King of England, which Henry had declined with a 
cold and proud disdain. Louis called Henry a coward ; 
Henry called Louis a fool. The young princes had both 
been in love with the *fair woman,' as Shakspeare calls 
her, — the widowed English queen, a daughter of Charles 
the Sixth — and Charles had carried away the prize. Har- 
ry was then our madcap Prince of Wales, the friend of 



42 Her Majesty's Tower. 

Poins, the companion of Sir John. Charles was a poet, a 
musician, a courtier ; and although Hal was of higher rank 
and riper age, Isabella had chosen the softer, more accom- 
plished prince for her future mate. Rivals in ambition and 
in love, every turn in their fortunes helped to make English 
Henry dislike the young French prince. 

The married life of Charles and Queen Isabella had been 
brief and clouded, though they had loved each other with 
a perfect heart. His father, Duke Louis, was a reprobate ; 
her father, the King of France, was mad. Her mother, Is- 
abeau the Wicked, was suspected of carrying on a guilty 
intrigue with Louis. Suspected is an ugly world, not light- 
ly to be raised against a woman ; but conjugal infidelity 
was not the lightest of Queen Isabeau's crimes. Duke Lou- 
is, her lover, was murdered in the streets at midnight, just 
as he was leaving her palace gates; murdered by com- 
mand of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, who open- 
ly avowed and justified his act. Violante, Charles's moth- 
er, and Isabella, his betrothed wife, went about the streets 
of Paris, clad in the deepest mourning, crying for revenge 
against the shedder of blood ; but no redress could be ob- 
tained from the crazy king against Fearless John. Vio- 
lante died of a broken heart. Isabella, the beautiful En- 
glish queen, was given to Charles; who lost her in a year 
— lost her in childbirth — when the young prince, only nine- 
teen years of age when she died, whom grief had made a 
poet, bewailed her loss in verses which have made him fa- 
mous, and are still recited as a consolation by many a wid- 
owed lip. 

Reasons of state induced him to marry a second wife ; 
Bona, daughter of Bernard, Count of Armagnac, the soul 
of his party in the court ; and this Duchess Bona became 
a tender mother to the infant princess left to his care by 
the dying Queen. 



Charles of Orleans. 43 

When madcap Harry, casting off Poins and Jack, broke 
into Normandy, putting his claims on the crown of France 
to the rude arbitrament of war, the young poet, like all the 
princes of his house, Bourbon, d'Albret, Bar, Brabant, Alen- 
9on, flew to arms, to defend his uncle's crown and his own 
eventual rights. After capturing Harfleur, the English 
king, Henry, was marching by the coast-line into Picardy ; 
but a vast, in their own belief an unconquerable, array of 
spears blocked up his way to Calais. In the tent scene on 
the night before Agincourt, Shakspeare has caught with 
subtle art, though merely in a few light words, the charac- 
ters of the French princes then encamped by the Somme. 
Orleans, who talks of sonnets, and swears by the w4iite 
hand of his lady, girds at the English king, his living rival 
in ambition and in love. Yet no braver soldier fell among 
the wounded on that fatal field than Charles, the poet- 
prince, who was found by his conqueror bleeding and 
speechless on a heap of slain. At first the Prince refused 
to eat food ; but his royal captor, who carried him to his 
tent, persuaded him to live, brought him into England, 
clapped him into the White tower, and fixed a ransom of 
300,000 crowns upon his head. 

At that time Charles was twenty-four years old. His 
infant daughter by Queen Isabella, afterwards Duchess of 
Alen9on, and his second wife, the Duchess Bona, were left 
behind in France. The latter he was not to see again ; 
for how in a broken and defeated France could such a sum 
as 300,000 crowns be raised? 

Henry, in fact, preferred his prisoner to his money ; for, 
after his march on Paris, and his marriage to Princess 
Catharine of Valois, Isabella's sister, it became of vast im- 
portance to him that Charles should die without having a 
son. After the Dauphin's death, Henry was promised the 
crown of France ; a promise which could never be made 



44 IIcT 3Iaje8ty's Toioer. 

Cfood, unless Charles of Orleans should die without male 
issue. So long, therefore, as the ransom was unpaid, and 
Henry had a pretext for detaining Charles in London, the 
poet was likely to remain a prisoner. He remained a pris- 
oner five-and-twenty years ! 

This time was spent in writing verses in French and 
English, both of which languages he spoke and wrote with 
ease ; lyrics on his lost love and on his absent wife. The 
dead Queen was his muse, and the most beautiful and ten- 
der of his verses were addressed to her. 

In the Royal Book of verse, now in the British Museum, 
an exquisite volume, highly illuminated, which appears to 
have been given as a bridal present from Henry of Rich- 
mond to Elizabeth of York, there is an excellent picture 
of Prince Charles's life in the keep. One drawing in this 
book is of peculiar interest ; in the first place, as being the 
oldest view of the Tower extant ; in the second place, as 
fixing the chamber in which tlie poet lived ; in the third 
place, as showing, in a series of pictures, the life which he 
led. First, we see the Prince in the Banqueting hall, seat- 
ed at his desk, composing his poems, with gentlemen in at- 
tendance, and guards on duty. Next, we observe him 
leaning on a window-sill, gazing outwards into space. 
Then we have him at the foot of the White toAver, em- 
bracing the messenger who brings the ransom. Again, we 
see him mounting his horse. Then we have him, and his 
friendly messenger, riding away. Lastly, he is seated in 
a barge, which lusty rowers are pulling down the stream, 
for the boat that is to carry him back to France. 

Henry of Agincourt had been dead many years, and the 
French had recovered nearly the whole of France (thanks 
to Jeanne Dare, and to the poet's natural brother, the fa- 
mous Bastard of Orleans) before Charles's day of libera- 
tion came. Every year his life had become more precious 



UncU Gloucester. 45 

to France, as the sons of Charles the Sixth dropped, one 
by one, leaving no heirs to his crown. At length the 
Duke of Burgundy, as an act of expiation for the past, of 
reconciliation for the future, paid the enormous ransom fix- 
ed upon his head, and set the poet free. 

When Charles arrived in Paris, he found the Duchess 
Bona dead, and his daughter, whom he had left a baby of 
five, a woman of thirty years. Reasons of state compel- 
ling him to begin life again, he married, for his third wife, 
Mary of Cleves, by whom he had a son, called Louis in re- 
membrance of his father ; and this child of the ransomed 
poet lived to mount the throne of France ; the politic and 
successful prince so well known in history as Louis the 
Twelfth. 



CHAPTER VIL 

UNCLE GLOUCESTER. 

* If I may counsel you, some day or two 
Your Highness shall repose you at the Tower. 
1 do not like the Tower. ' 

Thanks to the great poet, no name is stamped so dark- 
ly on the Tower as that of Gloucester. Richard seems to 
haunt the pile. If the word Tower crops up in talk, nine 
persons out of ten will throw his figure into the front. 
They see, in their mind's eye, Gloucester with his knife at 
King Henry's throat ; Gloucester denouncing Hastings at 
the board ; Gloucester in rusty armour on the wall. Men 
picture him as drowning his brother Clarence in the butt 
of wine ; as murdering his nephews. King Edward and the 
Duke of York. The localities of his crimes, and of the 
crimes imputed to him, are shown. He stabbed King 
Henry in the Hall tower, now the Jewel house. He ac- 



46 Ilcr Majesty's Tower. 

cused Lord Hastings in the Council chamber, and struck 
off his liead on the terrace below the keep. He drowned 
his brother in the Bowyer tower. He addressed the citi- 
zens from the terrace now known as Raleigh's walk. 
Brackenbury was kneeling in St. John's chapel, when he 
received the King's order to kill the princes. The boys 
were lodged by him in the rooms over the entrance gate, 
then known as the Garden tower. They were interred in 
the passage, at the foot of a private stair. The bones of 
these royal youths were afterwards dug out from behind a 
stair in the keep. 

That the princes were murdered in the Tower there ought 
to be no doubt. Two of the greatest men in English story 
vouch it ; not in the general feature only, but in the minor 
details of the crime. Sir Thomas More (the true author, 
as I think, of the book which bears his name) wrote at the 
time — about the year 1513 — while he was acting as judge 
of the sheriffs' court, and while two of the four actors in 
the business were still alive. Lord Bacon, who knew the 
place and the story well ; who probably heard the Tower 
authorities, when they read a welcome to King James, de- 
scribe the Bloody tower as the scene of that royal murder; 
seems to have felt no doubt on the point. What More and 
Bacon wrote, received clinching proof in the discovery 
which was afterwards made of the children's bones. 

Yet the story of this murder has been doubted ; not in 
detail only, but in block. Li the first place, political pas- 
sion led to reports that the princes were not dead; and 
Avhen these political reports fell away with time, they left 
behind them a bodiless spirit in the shape of historic 
doubt. 

Partisans of Lambert Symnell and Perkin Warbeck were 
bound to say the two princes had not been killed by Tyr- 
rell in the manner commonly supposed, and that one of 



Uncle Gloucester. 47 

them had not been killed at all. Duchess Marguerite (King 
Edward's sister) received young Warbeck as her nephew ; 
the Irish nobles owned him for their prince ; while a j^ow- 
erful English party, hating the victor of Bosworth field, 
were secretly disposed to push his claim. To all these par- 
tisans of the House of York, that story of a midnight mur- 
der was a fatal bar. 

From that day to our own some ghost of a doubt has al- 
ways fluttered round the tale. Bayley denies that if the 
crime were done at all it could have been done in the Gate 
liouse. But his reasons for rejecting a tradition which cer- 
tainly goes back to the time of the alleged murder are 
very weak. He thinks it unlikely that Gloucester would 
confine the royal youths in so obscure a place. He thinks 
it absurd to call a room bloody because two boys had been 
smothered in it. He finds, in a survey made in the reign 
of Henry the Eighth, that this pile w^as called the Garden 
tower, not the Bloody tower, as he thinks it ought to have 
been styled if the legend of the crime had then been con- 
sidered true. On what slight grounds historic doubt may 
rest ! 

Richard's scruples about putting his nephews into a dull 
lodging, after he had resolved to kill them, may be dis- 
missed w^ith a smile. Yet, fact being fact, it must be add- 
ed that the rooms over the gate Avere a part of the royal 
palace, communicating with the King's bedroom in the 
Lantern, through the private chapel and the Great hall. 
Nothing about the Gate house then suggested dismal 
thoughts. It was the Garden tower, called from a garden 
into which it opened. It was lighted on both sides, so 
that the windows commanded views of the inner and outer 
wards, as well as of the wharf, the river, and the bridge. 
It had a separate entrance to the pleasant promenade on 
the wall. King Henry the Sixth had lived in the adjoin- 



48 Her Majesty's Tower. 

ing room. As to the fact of calling a place bloody on ac- 
count of two boys having been smothered in it, a word 
may be said. Old writers do not say that both the boys 
were smothered ; indeed, the very first narrative of this 
murder (that of John Rastall, brother-in-law of More) states 
that the ruffians smothered one of the boys with a pillow 
and cut the other boy's throat with a knife. As to the 
change of name, the answer is brief Garden tower was 
an official name; the survey made by Henry the Eighth 
was an official work. It is only after many ages that in a 
public document you can expect to see an official name 
replaced by a popular name. The Bloody tower is not the 
only one which has changed its name in deference to pub- 
lic whim. The official name of the new Jewel house was 
once the Hall tower, that of the Lantern was once the New 
tower. Beauchamp tower is known as Cobham tower, 
Martin tower as Jewel tower. Brick tower as Burbagc 
tower, and Water gate as St. Thomas' tower. 

Edward the Fifth and his brother, Richard, Duke of 
York, one twelve years old, the other eight, were living in 
the palace, under charge of Sir John Brackenbury, then 
Lieutenant of the Tower; the young king having been de- 
prived of his royal power without being deposed from his 
royal rank. Gloucester ruled the kingdom as Protector. 
The queen-mother, Elizabeth "Woodville, who had seen her 
second boy torn from her arms, with wild foreboding of his 
fate, lived in sanctuary with the Abbot of Westminster ; 
occupying the Jerusalem chamber and that adjoining room 
which is now used by the Westminster boys as a dining- 
room. The fair Saxon lady, whose pink and white flesh 
and shower of golden hair had won for her the wandering 
heart of Edward the Fourth, could hear the mallets of join- 
ers in the abbey, could see the waggons of vintners and 
cooks bringing wine and meat to the great hall, by com- 



Uncle Gloucester. 49 

mand of Gloucester, for the coronation of her eldest son. 
But the royal widow knew in her heart that the festival 
day would never dawn. 

Her brother, who should have held the Tower for Ed- 
ward, forsook his post to join her in sanctuary under the 
Abbot's roof, where he felt that, come what might, his 
head would be safe. Gloucester took charge of the fort- 
ress in his nephew's name. Working in the dark, with 
shrugs and hints, he began to sound the great earls and 
barons as to how far they would go with him ; and to 
throw out bruits of a secret marriage having taken place 
between his brother, the late king, and Elinor Talbot ; by 
which reports the legitimacy of his nephews would be 
brought into doubt before Holy Church. Robert Stilling- 
ton, bishop of Bath, and Lord High Chancellor, is said to 
have helped the Duke, by saying that 7ie had married the 
King to Elinor ; a fact which he had concealed during Ed- 
ward's reign, because his royal master had afterwards made 
the still more fascinating Elizabeth Woodville the public 
partner of his throne. Some earls and knights took up the 
prelate's tale ; a few from fear of the Duke, others because 
they may have thought it true. Edward the Fourth, 
though light of love, had not been manly in protecting 
the frail ones whom his passions had brought to shame. 
Shore's wife was not the only woman whom he had loved 
and ruined. He was said to have left many a son in Cheap- 
side. Men who rejected the tale of Perkin Warbeck being 
the actual Duke of York, could not help thinking, from 
his face and figure, that he must have been King Edward's 
natural son. Such would seem to have been Bacon's view. 
A mock marriage was not, indeed, beyond Edward's flight ; 
and the Bishop of Bath and Wells may have aided him 
in some such frolic. That Edward had been guilty of 
entering into a clandestine marriage, and of keeping it 

C 



50 Her Majesty's Tower. 

secret, to the peril of his croAvn, is a story not to be re- 
ceived. 

But men who could not see with Gloucester's eyes, soon 
found that the Duke had a swift and ngly way of freeing 
himself from lukewarm friends. Lord Hastings felt it first. 
Pushing forward the young king's coronation, Richard call- 
ed a council, in which some of the men who knew his soul 
had seats. They met in the Council Chamber, where Lord 
Hastings, instead of playing into the Duke's hands, spoke 
up stoutly for the King ; on which Gloucester, who had 
been listening in a passage, rushed into the Council room, 
tore up his sleeve, showed a withered arm, which he ac- 
cused Hastings of having caused by impious arts, and asked 
his councillors what should be done. Words were useless. 
At a sign from Gloucester, bands of soldiers rushed from 
the corridor, tore Hastings from the table, dragged him 
downstairs, and, finding the block on the green out of or- 
der, threw him across a beam of wood and hacked off his 
head. 

Then came, stroke on stroke, the crowning of Richard 
and the murder of his inconvenient kin. 

Richard left London for the north while the crime was 
being done. His instruments had been chosen and his or- 
ders given. But the course of murder never quite runs 
smooth. Brackenbury was at his prayers, when the King's 
meaning was made known to him in a few sharp words. 
Finding him on his knees, the royal message was not likely 
to find him in the mood. He refused his task. The King 
had ridden so far as Warwick Castle when he heard that 
Sir John declined his office ; and though it was midnight 
when the rider came in, he slipt from his couch, passed 
into the guard-room, where Sir James Tyrrell, his master 
of the horse, lay sl^eeping on a pallet-bed, and gave a few 
sure words of instruction to that trusty knight. Tyrrell 



Uncle Gloucester. 51 

rode back to London, bearing a royal order that Bracken- 
bury should, for one night only, give up his command, 
with the keys and passwords. The month was August ; 
the days were hot; and Tyrrell was much oj^pressed in 
soul ; for murder is not an easy thing at best, and the er- 
rand on which he was riding to the Tower was one of the 
foulest ever known. But he feared the new king even 
more than he feared the devil and all his fires. Two trusty 
knaves were at his side — John Dighton and Miles Forrest ; 
fellows on whose strong arms and callous hearts he could 
count for any deed which the King might bid them do. 
These men he took down to the Gate house, Avhere the 
princes lay; and after getting the keys and passes from 
Brackenbury, he closed the Tower gates, and sent the two 
ruffians up into the princes' room. 

In a few seconds the deed was done. Stealing down- 
stairs, the murderers called their master, who stood watch- 
ing near the gate, to come up and see that the boys were 
dead. Tyrrell crept up, by the private door ; and, after 
giving a few orders to his agents, and calling the Tower 
})riest to their help, he rode away from the scene and from 
London ; bearing the dread news to his master, who was 
still going north towards York. 

The two murderers, helped, as it would seem, by the 
priest, got the bodies downstairs into the gateway ; dug a 
hole near the wall, and threw in the dead, and covered 
them over with earth and stones. But the new king, whose 
crimes made him superstitious, sent orders that the priest 
should bestow his nephews in some more decent place. 
The priest obeyed; but no one knew (unless it were the 
King) where he now laid them ; and as he died soon after, 
the secret of their sejoulchre passed from the knowledge 
of living men. 

After the battle of Bosworth and the fall of Richard, the 



62 Her 3Iajesty''s Tower. 

new king had no reason to conceal that grave, and after 
the rising of Perkin Warbeck it became a pressing duty for 
him to find it and make it known. He could not. Forrest 
was dead; the priest was dead. Tyrrell and Dighton, 
though living, and eager to confess their crime, covering 
themselves with a royal pardon, could not helj) King Henry 
to prove, by the very best evidence — their bones — that the 
princes were not alive. Richard had sent orders for the 
priest to remove them ; that was all they knew ; and every 
apprentice boy in London knew as much. The fact of a 
first burial, and then a second burial, is stated in the writ- 
ings ascribed to More, and is mentioned in Shaksj)eare's 

play:— 

'■ The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them, 
But where, to say the truth, I do not know.' 

As the priest would be likely to inter the princes in conse- 
crated ground, search was made, not only in the open 
graveyard near St. Peter's, but within the church. To find 
these relics ^vould have been to render a signal service to 
King Henry. N'o effort was spared ; but fate was against 
the search ; and as the bodies could not be found, the most 
cunning princes of Europe affected to believe that Perkin 
Warbeck the Pretender was King Edward's son. 

Two hundred years after the deed was done, the mys- 
tery was cleared. In the reign of Charles the Second, 
when the keep (no longer used as a royal palace) was being 
filled with state papers, some workmen, in making a new 
staircase into the royal chapel, found under the old stone 
steps, hidden close away, and covered with earth, the bones 
of two boys, which answered in every way to those which 
had been sought so long. Deep public wonder was ex- 
cited ; full inquiry into all the facts was made ; and a re- 
port being sent to Charles that these bones were those of 
the murdered princes, the King gave orders for their re- 



Prison Hides. 53 

moval to a royal sepulchre in Westminster Abbey. The 
bones thus found now lie in the great chapel built by 
Henry the Seventh, side by side witli some of the most em- 
inent of English kings. 



CHAPTER Vni. 

PKISON EULES. 
*Let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before Thee.' 

What, in those days, were the rule and order of our first 
state prison? 

The rule was simjDle, the order strict. In ancient times 
the government lay with the Constable, who had his offi- 
cial residence on the eastern wall, m Constable tower. This 
officer was paid in fees : twenty pounds on the committal 
of a duke, twenty marks on that of an earl, ten pounds on 
that of a baron, five pounds on that of a knight. A poor 
man had no right in the Tower at all ; the officers some- 
times complain that such and such a fellow could not afibrd 
to be a prisoner, and ought to be sent away. When a man 
was committed, the council seized his goods for the king's 
use, and the Treasury had to pay the Constable for his 
board and fire. So early as the reign of Richard the Sec- 
ond, the fees were fixed — for a duke at five marks a-week, 
for an earl at forty shillings, for a baron at twenty shil- 
lings, for a knight at ten shillings. A duke's chaplains 
were allowed six shillings and eight-pence a week; his 
gentlemen the same ; his yeomen three shillings and four- 
pence. All other servants were allowed three shillings 
and four-pence; all other yeomen one shilling and eight- 
pence. These fees were raised as gold declined in value. 
In the reign of Edward the Sixth, the Duchess of Somerset, 



54 Her Majesty^ 8 Toicer. 

with two gentlewomen and three male servants, cost the 
Treasury eight pounds a-week. In Mary's reign, Lady 
Jane Grey was allowed eighty shillings a-week for diet, 
with thirteen shillings and four-pence for wood, coal, and 
candle. Her two gentlewomen cost twenty shillings a-week, 
and her three male servants the same sum. A bishop was 
treated like a baron. Nicholas Ridley, bishop of London, 
was allowed fifty-three shillings a-week for food, with six 
shillings and eight-pence for fire and light. Two servants 
waited on him, who cost the country ten shillings a-week. 

The prisoners were cheated by their keepers, most of all 
in the comforts of fire and candle. 

The Constable, always a man of high rank, aj^pointed a 
Lieutenant, to whom he allowed a stipend of twenty 
pounds a-year, with such small savings as could be made 
in furniture and food. Li the reign of Henry the Eighth, 
the Lieutenant, who had now become the actual prison 
warder, had built a new house for his accommodation, in a 
courtly quarter of the prison, under the belfry; which 
house was afterwards known as the Lieutenant's lodgings. 
Close by his house, on either side, stood two smaller houses 
for his ofiicers ; that to the east, in the garden, became fa- 
mous in after times as the prison of Latimer and Raleigh ; 
that to the north, on the green, became famous as the pris- 
on of Lady Jane Gray. 

In time, the Lieutenant and his ofiicers came to look on 
the state allowance for a prisoner's maintenance as a per- 
quisite. They expected an offiender to j)ay heavy fees, 
and to find himself in furniture and diet. Raleigh paid for 
his food 208/. a-year ; equal to a thousand pounds in the 
present time. Bare walls, an oaken floor, a grated win- 
dow, an iron-bound door, were all provided by his country. 
Chairs, arras, tables, books, plate, fire and victuals, he had 
to buy for himself, at his own cost, through porters, serv- 



Prison Hides. 55 

ing-men, and cheats who lived upon his purse. When he 
had bought these articles, they were not his own, except 
for their immediate use. The rule was, that as a man 
brought nothing in, he could take nothing out. Whether 
he died in prison, or left it with a pardon, his goods of ev- 
ery kind were seized for his keeper's use. 

How a prisoner fared in his cell may be seen by two ex- 
amples taken from a heap of records. 

The case of Sir Henry Wyat, of Allington Castle, Kent, 
father of the wit and poet, takes us back to the latter 
days of the Red and White Roses. Wyat, a Lancastrian 
in politics, spent not a little of his time under watch and 
ward. The Wyat papers say — * He was imprisoned often ; 
once in a cold and narrow tower, where he had neither bed 
to lie on, nor clothes sufficient to warm him, nor meat for 
his mouth. He had starved there had not God, who sent 
a crow to feed his prophet, sent this his and his country's 
martyr a cat both to feed and warm him. It was his own 
relation unto them from whom I had it. A cat came one day 
down into the dungeon unto him, and, as it were, offered 
herself unto him. He was glad of her, laid her in his bosom 
to warm him, and, by making much of her, won her love. 
After this she would come every day unto him divers 
times, and, when she could get one, bring him a pigeon. 
He complained to his keeper of his cold and short fare. 
The answer was, *He durst not better it.' *But,' said 
Sir Henry, ' if I can provide any, will you promise to dress 
it for me ?' ' I may Avell enough,' said he, the keeper ; ' you 
are safe for that matter ;' and being urged again, promised 
him, and kept his j^romise, and dressed for him, from time 
to time, such pigeons as his accator the cat provided for 
him. Sir Henry Wyat in his prosperity for this would 
ever make much of cats, as other men will of their spaniels 
or hounds ; and perhaps you shall not find his picture any- 



56 Her Majestifs Toicer. 

where but, like Sir Christoplier Hattoii with his dog, with 
a cat beside him.' 

One picture of the old knight, with his faithful cat, pig- 
eon in paw, was seen in the South Kensington gallery of 
portraits. Wyat was put to the torture, a thing unknown 
to our law, but well known to our judges. Racks, boots, 
barnacles, thumbscrews, were occasionally used. The bar- 
nacles was an instrument fastened to the upper lips of 
horses'to keep them still while they were being bled ; and 
Richard the Third was fond of putting this curb on his 
enemies. One day, after putting it on Wyat, the King 
exclaimed in a fit of admiration, ' Wyat, why art thou such 
a fool ? Thou servest for moonshine in water. Thy mas- 
ter,' meaning Henry of Richmond, ' is a beggarly fugitive ; 
forsake him and become mine. Cannot I reward thee? 
And I swear unto thee I will.' To all this the prisoner re- 
plied : ' If I had first chosen you for my master, thus faith- 
ful would I have been to you, if you should have needed 
it. But the Earl, poor and unhappy though he be, is my 
master, and no discouragement, no allurement, shall ever 
drive me from him, by God's grace.' 

When the wars of the Roses came to an end, Sir Henry 
found that he had served for something better than moon- 
shine in water ; being made a Gentleman of the Privy 
Chamber, a knight banneret. Master of the Jewel house, 
Treasurer of the King's chamber, and a Privy Councillor ; 
rich enough to buy Allington Castle, one of the noblest 
piles in Kent ; where Lady Wyat, his wife, put the Abbot 
of Bexley in the stocks for taking liberties with one of her 
maids ; where Sir Henry lived to see his son. Sir Thomas, 
renowned as a wit, a poet, and a servant of the Queen. 

The case of Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, 
gives us glimpses of tlie prison seventy years later, in the 
reign of Edward the Sixth. 



Prison Hales. 57 

Norfolk was not only the first of English nobles, but the 
uncle of two queens, and nearly related to the King in 
blood. He had served his country in the council chamber 
and at foreign courts ; in the fleet and on the field of bat- 
tle ; nay, he had so far won King Henry's confidence as to 
be named one of his executors during the minority of his 
son. He was an early reformer, and in the wild rising 
called the Pilgrimage of Grace he had smitten the Catho- 
lics hip and thigh. Yet, when Henry was on his death- 
bed, rivals and enemies whispered in his ear that Norfolk's 
eldest son, Lord Surrey, the poet of whose genius we are 
all so proud, was looking for the hand of Mary, and quar- 
tering the arms of Edward the Confessor on his shield. 
The dying man was alarmed for the public peace. Father 
and son, seized in the King's name, were lodged, unknown 
to each other, in the Tower. Surrey, not being a peer of 
the realm, was tried at Guildhall by a common jury, before 
whom he pleaded his right to wear the Confessor's arms ; 
a right of usage which he said was sanctioned by the her- 
alds ; but the court pronounced this assumption of the 
king's arms treason, and the brilliant young noble laid his 
head upon the block. The Peers passed a bill of attainder 
against the old warrior; a warrant for his execution was 
signed ; but in the night, while the headsmen were sharp- 
ening their axe and setting up the block, the King ex- 
pired. Somerset, the Duke's rival, feared to carry out the 
warrant ; yet Norfolk was kept in prison until King Ed- 
ward died ; and in this interval of quiet endurance there is 
one letter from him extant, in which he humbly begs to 
have some books sent to him from a house in Lambeth, 
saying, very pathetically, that unless he has a book to en-' 
gage his mind, he cannot keep himself awake, but is al- 
ways dozing, and yet never able to sleep, nor has he ever 
done so for a dozen years ! Only one servant was allow- 

C 2 



58 Her Majestifs Tower. 

ed to wait upon him ; a rare restriction in the case of men 
of liis exalted rank. The Duchess of Somerset had two 
ladies and three male servants to attend her. Sir Edward 
Warner, the Lieutenant, made the usual charges for a duke, 
22/. 185. ^d. a month; charges which should have covered 
diet, light and fire. Yet Norfolk has to beg his good mas- 
ters for leave to walk by day in the outer chamber of his 
cell, for the sake of his health, which suffers very much 
from his close confinement. They can still, he says, lock 
him up in his narrow cage at night. He craves to be al- 
lowed some sheets, to keep him warm in bed. 

Such were the comforts of a prison, to the first peer in 
the realm, at a period when the laws did not pretend to be 
equal for the great and the obscure. A man of quality had 
one great advantage; he could not be stretched on the 
rack and hung by the cord. Cases occur of a baron in one 
cell uro-inor his follower in another never to confess, but to 
sjband out like a man ; and the poor commoner replying 
that it is easy for a lord to stand out, since he is only ex- 
amined by word of mouth ; not so easy for a poor wretch, 
who, unprotected by his quality, has to answer with his 
thumb under a screw and his limbs on the wheel. 



CHAPTER IX. 

BEAUCHAMP TO WEE. 



Before the days of Henry of Agincourt, the keep had 
ceased to be a common prison, and that function had been 
transferred to the large and central work on the western 
wall. This work became known by the names of Beau- 
champ tower and Cobham tower; names which take us 
back to Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and to 
Sir John Oldcastle, the Good Lord Cobham. 



Beauchamp Tower. 59 

This tower consists of three floors ; mainly of three large 
rooms, and a winding stair ; a room on the green, which 
was used by keepers and servants ; a middle room, used as 
a prison, for what may be called the second class of great 
oflenders ; an upjDcrmost room for the servants of great 
lords and for prisoners of inferior rank. 

The tenant to whom these chambers owe their first re- 
nown and lasting name, was a popular idol, Thomas de 
Beauchamp, son of that Earl of Warwick who had swept 
through the lines of Crecy and Poictiers. Beauchamp was 
of milder tastes and more popular manners than his sire ; 
a friend of the good Duke of Gloucester, Thomas of Wood- 
stock ; a builder, a gardener, a student ; a man who found 
more happiness in his park and his oratory than in courts 
and camps. When the House of Commons met to ajipoint 
a governor to the young king, Richard of Bordeaux, they 
fixed on Beauchamp as the man best gifted for so great a 
charge. It was a thankless oflice. Richard proved to be 
a boy, at once proud and base ; fond of pomp and show ; 
attached to low persons and degrading j^leasures. For the 
King's own good, Gloucester and Beauchamp put their 
strength together, and, being joined by Arundel, Mortimer, 
and other great barons, marched on London, seized the ra- 
pacious Simon Burley, and, after an open trial, put this un- 
popular minion of the King to death. All honest men re- 
joiced in Burley's fall ; but Richard was roused to anger ; 
and for many years he nursed a bitter heart, masked by a 
smiling face, against the men who had done him this true 
service. In fact, the arrest of Burley was not their sole 
offence. They wished to keep him in the open path of 
law; while he and his flatterers were bent on ruling in a 
fashion of their own. Hence they acquired the name of 
' sound advisers' to the court. 

For some years, Richard had to w^ait and grow; but 



60 Her Majesty^ s Tower. 

when he came of age, he took the reins into his liands, dis- 
missing his wise governor from his council, and banishing 
him into the midland shires. 

Beauchamp repaired to Warwick Castle, where he found 
sweet employment for his genius in building towers, in 
strengthening walls, in planting trees. Some of his noble 
work remains in evidence of his taste and skill ; among 
other things, Guy's tower, on the north-east corner of the 
castle, and the nave of St. Mary's Church in the town. 

But even in the country, men so popular as the Duke of 
Gloucester and the Earl of Warwick were not to be en- 
dured by a prince who dreamt of seizing all the powers of 
the realm into his puny hands. At length his occasion 
came, and he struck his blow. Arundel was the first to 
fall ; Beauchamp followed next ; but they only fell when 
the liberties of England were destroyed, when parliaments 
were swept away, and the King, with the advice of eight 
lords and three commoners only, assumed the power of 
making all future laws for the government of his realm. 
It was a vast usurpation, and the men who became its vic- 
tims were regarded as martyrs in a sacred cause. 

The barons seized by the King were taken by perfidious 
arts. Lord Arundel was carried by his brother, the Lord 
Primate, to the King's closet, whence he was hurried to 
the Isle of Wight. Beauchamp was caught as he was 
leaving the royal table. The weak prince, who piqued 
himself on his guile, invited the great and popular Earl to 
dine with him, and on his arrival treated him with distin- 
guished favor, sitting at the same board, and calling him 
his very good lord. A stranger who stood by would have 
suj)posed Beauchamp higher in grace than ever; but the 
King's servants knew their master; and were not sur- 
prised, on quitting the banquet, to find him a jirisoner in 
the marshal's hands. In a few days, Beauchamp was giv- 



Beaiichaiiip Tower, 61 

en in charge to Ralph Lord ISTevill, of Raby, Constable of 
the Tower, by whom he was lodged in the apartment to 
which he has bequeathed his name. 

Thomas of Woodstock, known as the Good Duke of Glou- 
cester, was taken next, at his castle of Plasley, near Dun- 
mow, by an ingenious wile. Richard set out from London, 
dressed as for a royal hunt ; rode on to Havering Park, 
where dinner had been prepared for him ; and, after eating 
a hearty meal, got on his horse, and went on to Plasley, the 
Duke's residence, with a few gentlemen only in his train. 
It was five o'clock of a summer afternoon when they clat- 
tered into the open court ; the Duke, who had just supped, 
led down the Duchess and his children to the court-yard to 
give his nephew welcome. Richard went into the house, 
and sat at table ; but after a few minutes, he cried, * Fair 
uncle, cause you some five or six horses to be brought, and 
let us away to London, where we need your counsels.' 
Uncle and nephew descended into the yard, leapt to their 
horses, and rode away; the King keeping in front, at a 
sharp trot, until they came upon an ambush of armed men, 
who seized the Duke's bridle and held him fast. Glouces- 
ter shouted to his nephew to come back; but the King 
rode forward, taking no heed of the Duke's cries, until he 
reached the Tower and threw himself on his couch. The 
Duke, brought up to London by his guards, was thrust on 
board a ship, carried over to Calais, and lodged in the cas- 
tle of that town, from which he was never to escape with 
life. 

Arundel was tried, condemned, and executed. Mortimer 
escaped from his pursuers into the wilds of Ulster, where 
he dwelt in safety with the Irish kernes. 

From his cell on the west wall, Beauchamp was carried 
by Lord Nevill arid his javelin men to the House of Peers, 
where John of Gaunt informed him that he stood accused 



62 Her 3Iajest(/^s Tower. 

by Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Rutland, of having, in 
times long past, committed divers crimes and offences 
against his lord the king. Beauchamp replied, that for 
these alleged offences he had received a pardon under the 
Great Seal. Of course this plea was final. But Sir John 
Clopton, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, declared that 
this pardon under the Great Seal would not serve his turn, 
since the King, for good and wise reasons, had, on the 
prayer of his faithful Parliament, repealed that instrument 
as void and of no effect. Seeing that the ancient law and 
franchise of the realm were set at naught, the Earl could 
do nothing else than put his cause in the hands of God and 
his Peers. 

Rutland made the charge against him in two main parts. 
In the first part, he accused Beauchamp of high treason in 
having raised an armed force against the King's authority 
and crown ; in the second part, in having arres-ted, tried, 
and executed Sir Simon Burley, without the King's con- 
sent, to the great scandal of his royal justice. Beauchamp 
knew they would condemn him; though he may have 
doubted whether they would dare to defy the City by 
sending him to the block. He pleaded guilty to the charge. 
In a version of his trial, which was published by the court, 
he is said to have confessed his faults w^ith many tears; 
urging that he felt the wickedness of what he had done, 
and that his only hope was in the King's grace and mercy. 
Gaunt pronounced the same sentence as on Arundel ; that 
he should be hanged, drawn, and quartered ; that his name 
should be erased from the roll of Peers ; that all his cas- 
tles, manors, and estates, should revert to the Crown. 
With the weight of this sentence on his head, he was taken 
back to the Tower, where Lord Nevill replaced him in his 
cell until his majesty's pleasure should be further known. 

Richard, covered with the odium of his uncle's murder, 



The Good Lord Cobham. 63 

could not bring his pen to sign the warrant for Beauchamp's 
death. The Earl had a great following, and his prison Avas 
a centre of j^ublic emotion, like that of Raleigh in a later 
reign. To get rid of these sympathies, he was sent away 
to the Isle of Man, a prisoner for life ; but that small islet 
in the Irish Sea was found to be no safe jail for so great a 
man ; and before the year ran out he was brought back to 
London and lodged once more under Nevill's eye. Here 
he remained for two years longer ; when the star of Henry 
of Bolingbroke rising in the west, he was set at liberty, 
purged in honour, and restored to his rank and fortune. 

His ashes lie at Warwick, in the noble church which he 
had built in the days of his happy exile from the court. 



CHAPTER X. 

the good lord cobham. 
*Oldcastle died a MARTYE.' 



So runs the epilogue to Shakspeare's Second Part of 
King Henry the Fourth. ' Oldcastle died a martyr, and 
this is not the man !' 

In the first draft of Shakspeare's play the mighty piece 
of flesh, now known to all men as Sir John Falstafi*, was 
l^resented to a Blackfriars' audience under the name of Sir 
John Oldcastle. Why was such a name adopted for our 
great buffoon ? Why, after having been adopted, was it 
changed ? Why, above all, is Oldcastle first presented by 
the poet as a buffoon, and afterwards proclaimed a martyr? 

These questions hang on a story which unfolds itself in 
the Beauchamp tower. 

Sir John Oldcastle lived when his young friend, Harry 
of Monmouth, was a roguish lad, at Couling Castle, close 



64 Her Majesty's Toicer, 

by Gad's Hill, on the great Kent road. Besides being a 
good soldier, a sage councillor, and a courteous gentleman, 
Oldcastle was a pupil of Wycliffe, a receiver of the new 
light, a protector of poor Lollards, a contemner of monks 
and friars, a man who read the Bible on his knees, and took 
the word which he found there to be good for his soul. 
He was not only a friend of the reigning king, but of the 
graceless prince. He had fought with equal credit in the 
French wars and in the Welsh wars ; but his flime was not 
confined to the court and camp. Rumour linked his name 
with some of the pranks of madcap Hal. We know, that 
he lived near Gad's Hill, that he built a new bridge at 
Rochester, and founded in that city a house for the main- 
tenance of three poor clerks. We know nothing about 
him that suggests the pranks on Gad's Hill, and the orgies 
in Eastcheap. A high, swift sort of man ; full of fight, 
keen of tongue, kind to the poor, impatient with the proud ; 
such was the brave young knight who wedded Joan, last 
heiress of the grand old line of Cobham, in whose right he 
held Couling Castle ; sitting in the House of Peers as Lord 
Cobham ; a name by which he was not less widely known 
and dearly loved than by his own. Poor and pious peoj)le 
everywhere called him the * Good Lord Cobham.' 

Between this popular layman and his neighbour, Thomas 
Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, bad feeling had grown 
up. Oldcastle hated monks ; and Arundel was a patron 
of monks. Oldcastle stood out for free inquiry ; Arundel 
was the chief author of our atrocious act for burning here- 
tics. The two men were opposed like day and night ; no 
grace and fiivour could make them friends; and once in 
conflict, the tug of war was sure to be long and fierce. 

Arundel, being bent on crushing the Lollard preachers, 
found his neighbour of Couling Castle in the way ; for Sir 
John not only went to hear these Lollards preach, but 



TJie Good Lord Cohham. 65 

lodged them in his house, and defended them by his power. 
Nay, Sir John set his face against the new policy intro- 
duced by Arundel, from Spain, of burning men alive. This 
burning of men alive was a new thing in the land; and al- 
though it had then been made law, it was known to be a 
foreign, and held to be a devilish device, not to be justified 
from the Word of God. Sir John, a man of quick temper 
and shrewd of tongue, let those prelates and friars who 
had got the law passed know what he thought of them. 

Arundel drew up a charge against Sir John, on the score 
of his opposition to Holy Church, which, backed by some 
priests and monks, he laid before the King. Henry, who 
did not want to quarrel with his friend, replied that he 
would himself speak with Sir John, and show him the error 
of his way. Nothing came of this pause. Henry talked 
to Sir John ; but Oldcastle was a learned clerk, which Hen- 
ry was not ; and, after much writing and talking on the 
point, the King, at once puzzled and vexed over a coil which 
his wit could not smooth, left the swordsman and the 
gownsman to fight their fight. 

Arundel cited Oldcastle to aj^pear at Canterbury and 
purge his fame. Oldcastle replied by manning the walls 
and strengthening the gates of Couling Castle ; since the 
Lord Primate, a baron of the realm, no less than a prince 
of the Church, was likely enough, on his second citation, 
to send archers and halberdiers to enforce his will. The 
crafty Primate took a surer way. He caused John Butler, 
one of the King's servants, to go with his own man to 
Couling, where he was challenged by the guard, and re- 
fused admission within the gates. Butler had no business 
there ; but the fact of his being sent away was adroitly 
presented to the King as an act of disloyalty on the part 
of Sir John. Quick in temper, Henry gave orders to arrest 
his friend, who was seized by a royal messenger, and given 



66 Her 3Iajest\fs Toicer. 

in keeping to Sir Robert Morlcy, then Lieutenant of the 
Tower. 

Sir Robert lodged the King's old friend in the Earl of 
"Warwick's chamber ; then the most stately and commodi- 
ous prison in his charge ; the Lieutenant's house not being 
erected until the reign of Henry the Eighth. 

In this chamber, which people began at once to call Cob- 
ham tower (a name which clings to it still), he was visited 
by his fast enemies, the monks and friars, Avho put him 
through his catechism, and got logically cudgelled for their 
pains. But Arundel felt that he had his foe in the toils. 
A prisoner of the Church had no friends ; and a man on 
whom Henry frowned was not likely to meet with mercy 
from a bench of priests. A synod met on his case in St. 
Paul's, which Arundel adjourned to an obscure Dominican 
convent on Ludgate Hill. When Oldcastle was brought 
to this convent by Sir Robert, he found among his judges, 
over whom the Primate sat in state, the priors of the Au- 
gustine and Carmelite friars. Li fact, the denouncer of 
monkish abuses was now to be tried for his life by a board 
of monks. 

Oldcastle's answers to his accusers struck the folks who 
afterwards heard of them like steel on flint. WyclifFe him- 
self had never put the new lore in a finer light. He de- 
clared that the Bible was his rule of faith ; that every man 
had a right to the sacred guide ; that the bread and wine 
were typical, but not actual, body and blood of Christ. 
'What !' cried one of the judges ; * this is flat heresy.' ' St. 
Paul, the Apostle,' answered Sir John, ' was as wise as you 
be now and more godly learned : and he wrote to the Co- 
rinthians, " The bread which we brake, is it not the com- 
munion of the body of Christ ?" He threw out his opin- 
ions freely.' ' By our Lady,' cried the Primate, ' there shall 
be no such preaching within my diocese and jurisdiction — 



The Good Lord Cohham. 67 

if I may know it.' The synod, acting on tlic new Spanish 
law, condemned Sir John to be burnt with fire until he 
died. 

When that sentence of the court was read, and the cul- 
prit was asked what he had to say, he stood up, and spake 
these memorable words : 

* Ye judge the body which is but a wretched thing, yet 
am I certain and sure that ye can do no harm to my soul. 
He who created that, will of His own mercy and promise 
save it. As to these articles, I will stand to them, even to 
the very death — by the grace of my eternal God.' 

Morley led him back from the Dominican convent to the 
Beauchamp tower, followed by the cries and tears of a 
whole city, in which his words were repeated from mouth 
to mouth. A paper in which ho wrote down the points of 
his belief was read in every gateway as Sir John Oldcastle's 
creed. In his fresh confinement, under sentence of death 
by fire, he heard from friends of the good cause that re- 
ports were being spread abroad of his having changed his 
mind since his condemnation. To meet these slanders, and 
to edify the pious, he sent out from Beauchamp tower a 
paper in the following words : 

' Forasmuch as Sir John Oldcastle, knight and Lord Cob- 
ham, is untruly convicted and imprisoned, falsely reported, 
and slandered among the common people by his adver- 
saries, that he should otherwise both feel and speak of the 
sacraments of the Church, and especially of the blessed 
sacraments of the altar, than was written in the confession 
of his belief, which was indicted and taken to the clergy, 
and so set up in divers open places in the City of London, 
known be it here to all the world that he never since va- 
ried in any point.' 

The paper was posted by his friends on church-doors, on 
blank walls, and on the City gates. But tliis good service 



G8 Iler Majesty's Tower. 

was not all that could be done for him. Four weeks after 
liis sentence had been read at Paul's Cross, "William Fisher, 
dealer in skins, and a band of resolute citizens, came down 
to the fortress on a dark October night, the vigil of St. Si- 
mon and St. Jude, forced their way into Beauchamp tower, 
drew out the poj^ular hero, got away from the gates with- 
out being pursued, and carried him in safety to his town 
house in Smithfield. 

Henry took no active steps against the escaped heretic, 
who remained for nearly three months in his town house, 
safe in the armed city against all that could be done by 
monks and friars. But Arundel was not a man to slacken 
liis grip on an enemy's throat. Of himself he could do 
nothing against a peer so strong in popular support. Only 
the King could cope with Cobliam. Now, Henry would 
never stir against a brave soldier, at the suit of a turbulent 
priest, unless some danger should appear to threaten his 
crown and life. Then, indeed, the primate knew that his 
passion would be fierce and his movement swift. How 
could an appearance of danger be brought about ? No 
man then living had enjoyed a longer exj^erience than 
Arundel in popular tumults, in civil war, in the deposition 
of kings. He knew the art of goading the Commons into 
discontent, and turning their discontent to his own account. 
Even the great place which he held in the Church had been 
won as a gambler wins his stake, by a lucky chance. 

The Lollards helped him. Either prompted by cunning 
spies, or moved by reckless councillors, the men who shared 
the new light resolved on making a grand display of 
strength. They spoke of holding a meeting in St. Giles' 
Fields; they said their general, as they called Sir John, 
would appear amongst them ; and they promised to mus- 
ter at his call a hundred thousand stronc:. Sucli a meetinir 
of the Commons, in a field near London, was not to Henry's 



The Good JLord Cobham. 69 

mind, and his Christmas revels in the country were troub- 
led by the spectre of this coming Lollard day. 

Arundel seized his chance. The King was away at El- 
tham, keeping the festival of his faith, when the Lord Pri- 
mate sent him word that an army of fanatics was about to 
encamp in front of Newgate ; that these pestilent fellows 
meant to pull down kings and bishops, and set up a devil's 
commonwealth, with the heretic. Sir John Oldcastle, as re- 
gent of his realm. Henry flushed into rage ; yet even in 
his fury he acted like a master of events. No one read 
alarm upon his brow. The palace revels were kept up ; 
but on Twelfth Night coming, his horse was brought to 
the door, and he rode away towards London. If the cap- 
tain who had smitten Burgundy were in the field, with a 
hundred thousand commoners at his back, the task before 
him might be rough and sharp. So he called his barons to 
his side, shut up the City gates, stuck a white cross on his 
banner, such as knights put on who were going to die for 
Holy Church, sallied from the city before it was yet dawn, 
marched into St. Giles' fields, and occupied all the lanes. 
The Lollards were completely caught. As the bands came 
in from the country, they were seized and brought before 
the King. * What seek ye ?' was the sharp question. * We 
go to meet our General,' said the foremost, scarcely know- 
ing to whom he spake. ' Who is your General ?' ' Who is 
our General! Who should he be save the Good Lord 
Cobham?' 

Oldcastle was proclaimed ; a thousand marks set on his 
head; and privilege ofiered to the city that should yield 
him bound to the King. All these rewards were cried in 
vain. Leaving his house in Smithfield, he roamed about 
the country ; now in Wales, anon near London, afterwards 
in Kent ; in every place hearing of the thousand marks, 
and of the privilege to be won by liis arrest ; finding, in 



70 Her Majesty's Tower. 

every shire, men and women eager to brave ruin and death 
in his defence. As a man cast out from the Church, it was 
a mortal sin to feed and shelter him. Every monk whom 
he met was a spy; every priest whom he saw was a judge; 
yet for more than four years he defied the united powers 
of Churcli and Crown; sheltered from pursuit \>j poor 
folk whom he had taught, and by whom he was madly 
loved. 

Once lie was near beincj taken. Lodj^ins: in a farm- 
house near St. Alban's, on a manor belonging to the abbey, 
he was seen by some of the abbot's men, who quickly ran 
to inform their lord, and came back to the farm with a 
force to arrest him in his bed. 

Oldcastle was got away ; but his books were seized ; and 
some of his stout defenders, who were taken by the abbot's 
men, were hung as a warning to the rest. On the books 
being opened they were found to be religious works ; but 
the abbot of St. Alban's was shocked to see that the heads 
of all the saints had been either torn out or defaced. 

William Fisher, the dealer in skins, who had conducted 
Oldcastle's rescue from the Tower, was seized in his house, 
and tried at Newgate before Nicholas Wotton, and three 
other judges, on a charge of breaking into the Tower, and 
carrying oif the King's prisoner. Fisher, found guilty by 
a packed jury, was sentenced by Wotton to be hung at Ty- 
burn, to have his neck chopped through, to have his head 
spiked, and exposed on London Bridge. 

After a chase of more than four years, the friars, who 
could not persuade the commons to betray Sir John, were 
base enough to buy him from a Welsh fellow named Powis; 
a wretch of some local weight, who had won the friendship 
of Oldcastle by adopting his views about the monkish or- 
der and the Bread and Wine. The friars who got hold of 
Powis plied him with money to betray his master, until his 



TJiG Good Lord Cobhcun. ' 71 

virtue finally gave way, and he consented to act the part 
of Judas, on receipt of sijch wages as Judas got. He came 
upon Oldcastle by surjorise, accosted him as a friend, and 
took him prisoner by a desperate figlit. 

Wounded and weak, Sir John was brought to the Tower; 
and, the King being absent in France, the clergy gave 
themselves no trouble about a second trial ; but, taking 
the old sentence of death to be sufficient, they sent him to 
the gallows and the stake ; to the first as a traitor against 
his King; to the second as an apostate from his Church. 
He was burnt in Smithfield, in front of his own house ; the 
first man who was given to the flames on that famous spot. 
Such is the story of a gallant warrior, a pious gentleman, 
and a faithful knight. 

Now, what is there in such a man to suggest the idea of 
Falstaff — a braggart, a coward, a lecher, a thief? 

Shakspeare was not the first to put this insult on Sir 
John. When the young poet came to London, he found 
the play-writers using the name of Oldcastle as synony- 
mous with braggart, buffoon, and clown. As Fuller says, 
Sir John Oldcastle was the make-sport in old plays for a 
coward. Finding the name current (just as a comic writer 
finds Pantaloon — a degradation of one of the noblest Ital- 
ian names — on our modern stage), Shakspeare adopted it 
in his play. 

This false Sir John was the creation of those monks and 
friars against whom the true Sir John had fought his man- 
ly fight. Those friars composed our early plays; those 
friars conducted our early dumb shows ; in many of which 
the first great heretic ever burned in England was a figure. 
Those friars would naturally gift their assailant with the 
ugliest vices — for how could an enemy of friars be gallant, 
young, and pious ? In this degraded form, the name of 
Oldcastle was handed down from fair to fair, from inn-yard 



72 Her Majesty's Tower. 

to inn-yard, until it took immortal shape on Shakspeare's 
stage. 

Now comes a personal query : — the significance of which 
will not be overlooked by men who wish to learn what 
they can of Shakspeare's life. 

Why, after giving to the Oldcastle tradition that im- 
mortal shape, did Shakspeare change the name of his buf- 
foon to Falstaff, and separate himself for ever from the 
party of abuse ? 

The point is very curious. Some motive of unusual 
strength must have come into play before such a course 
could have been taken by the poet. It is not the change 
of a name, but of a state of mmd. For Shakspeare is not 
content with striking out the name of Oldcastle and writ- 
ing down that of Falstaff. He does more — much more — 
something beyond example in his works — He makes a con- 
fession of his faith. 

In his own person, as poet and as man, he proclaims 
from the stage — 

Oldcastle died a Maettr! 

That was a sentiment which Raleigh might have held, 
which Cartwright would have expressed. It was the 
thought for which Weever w^as then struggling in his 
* Poetical Life of Sir John Oldcastle ;' for which James, 
the friend of Jonson, if not of Shakspeare, was compiling 
his * Defence of the noble knight and martyr, Sir John Old- 
castle.' 

The occurrence of such a proclamation suggests that, be- 
tween the first production of ' Henry the Fourth' and the 
date of his printed quarto, Shakspeare changed his way of 
looking at the old heroes of English thought. 

In the year 1600, a play was printed in London with the 
title, ' The First Part of the True and Honourable History 



King and Cardinal. 73 

of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, the Good Lord Cobham.' 
The title-page bore Shakspeare's name. ' Sir John Oldcas- 
tle' is now regarded by every one as a play from other 
pens ; in fact, it is known to have been written by three of 
Shakspeare's fellow-playwrights; but many good critics 
think the poet may have written some of the lines and ed- 
ited the work. This drama was a protest against the 
wrong which had been done to Oldcastle on the stage by 
Shakspeare. The prologue said : — 

' It is no pampered glutton we present, 
Nor aged councillor to youthful sin ; 
But one whose virtue shone above the rest, 
A valiant martyr and a virtuous peer. ' 

These lines are thought to be Shakspeare's own. They 
are in his vein, and they repeat the declaration which he 
had already made. 

Oldcastle died a Martyr! 

The man who wrote that confession in the days of Arch- 
bishop Whitgift was a Puritan in faith. 



CHAPTER XL 

KING AND CARDINAL. 



When the Wars of the Roses came to an end, the royal 
stronghold ceased to be a general prison, and opened its 
gates to few save men of the highest class. Down to the 
Tudor times, oifenders of rank had been lodged in the Ban- 
queting hall, while those of inferior state had been flung 
into Little Ease. But poetry and art were touching men's 
souls into softness, and a rival in politics was no longer re- 
garded as a wretch unworthy to live in the light of heaven. 

D 



74 Her Majesty's Tower. 

Under the Belfry, in the south-west corner of the royal 
ward, King Henry the Eighth built a Lieutenant's house ; 
a house of many chambers ; opening into the lower and up- 
per rooms of the Belfry ; and having a free passage, on one 
side into the Garden, on the other side into the Beau- 
champ tower. This house was flanked by two smaller 
buildings ; warders' houses, one under the west wall, an- 
other under the south wall. The latter, standing in the 
Lieutenant's garden, was called the Garden house. None 
of these places were built as prisons ; and none were used 
as such under Henry the Eighth, except the Belfry and the 
Beauchamp tower. 

A bare stone vault, pierced for archers and balisters, 
who from this high post could sweep the outer works with 
shaft and bolt : such is that upper chamber of the Belfry, 
which is known in old records as the Strong Room. 

Two points about this room, beyond the fact of its amaz- 
ing strength, soon catch the eye. In the first place, it has 
no stairs ; no entrance from below ; no passage into the 
outer world, except through the Lieutenant's house ; in 
the second place, it is provided with a private closet, called 
in old English a ' homely place.' 

The man who made the Strong Room famous, not by his 
age, his eminence, and his sufferings only, but by his gaiety, 
his humour, and his stoutness of spirit, was John Fisher, 
Bishop of Rochester, Cardinal in Rome. 

Cardinal Fisher's story takes one back to an age when 
England was becoming what Spain has always been, — a 
country governed in a high degree, not by the nobler spir- 
its of her church, but by ignorant monks and superstitious 
nuns. The offence by which Fisher fell was the half smil- 
ing, half earnest siding which he took with Elizabeth Bar- 
ton, the Maid of Kent ; a crazy young girl, subject to fits 
and ravings, who lifted up her voice against the divorce of 



King and Cardinal. 75 

Catharine and the marriage of Queen Anne. The Maid 
sent her prophecies to both Wolsey and the King. Henry 
was only moved to mirth. ' Why,' said he, in effect, to 
Cromwell, ' these are rhymes, and very bad rhymes ; this is 
no angel's work ; but such as a silly woman might do of 
her own poor wit.' Afterwards he read her rhymes in a 
darker spirit ; but this change of humour was wrought in 
his mind by the Maid herself. 

The Spanish party in the Church, prone to accept irreg- 
ular aid from heaven, soon saw the use which might be 
made of this crazy girl. Placing her in a convent, they 
gave her five monks of Christ Church, of whom Father 
Bocking was the chief, to be her guides and secretaries. 
Under their eyes, the Nun made startling progress in di- 
vine lore ; speaking words which priests and prelates who 
wished them to be true, received with a thankful heart. 
Wolsey was puzzled by the Maid ; but Wolsey was then 
trying to play two games. Fisher wept with joy; but 
Fisher agreed with what Father Bocking was making his 
Nun put forth. Many of her sayings were dark enough ; 
but when need arose for plainness, she could be curt as a 
Hebrew seer. She declared that Heaven was against the 
divorce. She called on the King to abandon his great de- 
sign. She admonished him, as he loved his soul, to put 
Anne away and take Catharine back. These words from 
the Maid of Kent were scattered through the land; copies 
being sent from Christ Church through the province of 
Canterbury, and the mendicant friars employed to report 
them in every village ale-house, and in every convent-yard 
from the Medway to the Tweed. 

One day, under Father Bocking's lead, the poor Nun 
overshot her mark, and brought down ruin on her master 
and herself. In true Spanish style, she sent a message to 
the King, not only denouncmg his divorce, but declaring 



76 Her Majesty's Tower, 

that if he put Catharine away, he would die in seven 
months, when his daughter Mary, though degraded to the 
rank of bastard, would ascend his throne. 

Such a threat was no theme for mirth. Henry swept 
the whole brood of darkness — Nun, priest, friar, doctor — 
into the Tower, on their way to Tyburn. The poor girl 
confessed with her last breath that she was a simple wom- 
an, who had only done what the fathers told her to do for 
the love of God and the service of Holy Church. 

A room over Cold-harbour gateway, in which the poor 
Maid was lodged, was for many years known as the Nun's 
bower. 

Fisher, it is not denied, played fast and loose with the 
Maid of Kent ; as in our own day we have seen great pre- 
lates coquet with nuns, apparently not more worthy of 
their trust. He hoped that good would come of her delu- 
sions ; most of all, he fancied that the King, having waited 
six long years for Anne, might be frightened into waiting 
a few years more, after which it would be easier for him to 
change his mind. In some such liope the prelate took the 
Maid's part, encouraging her visions, stirring up public cu- 
riosity about her, implying that her speeches came from 
God. 

When charged with aiding and abetting treason, he re- 
plied that he had given his ear to the impostor only on fair 
grounds, seeing cause for the favour he had shown to her 
in facts which had come to him on good report. With 
biting malice, Cromwell told him that the outward facts 
had not weighed with him one jot. ' My lord,' said Crom- 
well, not in these words, but to this purport, * you liked the 
stuff she vittered, and you pretended to believe it true be- 
cause you wished it true.' 

Of the treason of Father Booking and the Holy Maid, no 
man can feel a doubt ; for theirs was a simple act ; imag- 



King and Cardinal. 77 

ining and compassing the King's death in a way which 
brought them under judgment of the law. Fisher's crime 
was far less clear ; and many men regard him, not without 
grounds, as having been made a martyr to his faith. The 
Cardinal's hat took off the Bishop's head. 

Cardinal Fisher, eighty years old, was seized as a plot- 
ter, tried for his offence, thrust into a barge, and j^uUed 
down the Thames. When his boat slipped under the arch- 
way of the Water-gate, he toddled on shore, and turning to 
the crowd of guards and oarsmen about him, said, 'As they 
have left me nothing else to give you, I bestow on you my 
hearty thanks.' Some of the rough fellows smiled, though 
they must have felt that hearty thanks from a good old 
man who was about to die could do them no harm. 
Lodged in the Strong Room, he suffered much from chill 
and damp. The Belfry not only stood above the ditch, 
but lay open to the east wind and to the river fog. Fisher 
told Cromwell, in piteous letters, that he was left without 
clothing to keep his body warm. Yet the fine old j^relate 
never lost either his stoutness of heart or his quick sense 
of humour. One day, when it was bruited about the Tower 
that he was to suffer death, his cook brought up no dinner 
to the Strong Room. ' How is this ?' asked the prelate, 
when he saw the man. — ' Sir,' said the cook, ' it was com- 
monly talked of in the town that you should die, and there- 
fore I thought it vain to dress anything for you.' — ' Well, 
said the bishop, 'for all that report thou seest me still 
alive ; therefore, whatever news thou shalt hear of me, 
make ready my dinner, and if thou see me dead when thou 
comest, eat it thyself 

Henry and Cromwell would have spared his life, had 
they seen their way. But Fisher would not help them ; 
neither would his friends help them. First and last, he 
was a member of the Italian Church, and no thought for 



78 Her Majesty^ s Toioer. 

his country could for one moment move him to desert the 
cause of that Church. Even while he was lying in the 
Strong Room of the Belfry he sent secret messages to the 
monks at Sion, hostile to Queen Anne. He kept up a warm 
correspondence with Rome, and Paul the Third chose that 
unhappy time to send him, against the express command 
of Henry, a cardinal's hat. On hearing of this hat being 
on the way from Rome, the King exclaimed, ' Fore God, 
then, he shall wear it on his shoulders.' 

The death-warrant reached the Tower at midnight, and 
the Lieutenant, Sir Edmund Walsingham, went into the 
Belfry at five o'clock, to let the Cardinal know his fate. 
' You bring me no great news,' said Fisher ; ' I have long 
looked for this message. At what hour must I die ?' — ' At 
nine,' said Walsingham. — ' And what is the hour now ?' 
— 'Five,' answered the Lieutenant. It was June, and of 
course broad daylight, even in the Strong Room, at five 
o'clock. — ' Well, then, by your patience, let me sleep an 
hour or two; for I have slept very little. Walsingham 
left the Cardinal, who slept until seven, when he rose and 
put on his finest suit. On his servant wondering why he 
dressed so bravely, the old man answered, ' Dost thou not 
mark, man, that this is our naarriage day ?' 

Taking a New Testament in his hands, he walked from 
the Strong Room, through Walsingham's house and the 
Bye-ward gate to Tower Hill ; a vast crowd pressing round 
him, some of whom could see his lips moving in prayer, and 
hear the words issuing from his mouth. As he gazed on 
the closed Gospel in his hand, he prayed the Lord that he 
might find in it some special strength in that mortal hour ; 
and as he prayed for this strength, he paused in his walk, 
opened the sacred volume, and read the passage on which 
his eye first fell — ' This is life eternal, to know Thee, the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.' 



The Pilgrimage of Grace. 79 

Comforted by these words, he went lightly on, mounting 
up the steep hill, repeating, ' This is life eternal,' until he 
came to the scaffold, where he spoke a few words to the 
people, and laid his white head upon the block. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE PILGRIMAGE OF GEACE. 



In the hot war which the new learning had to wage 
against the ancient Church — a war of life and death — a 
war which, under new names, and with a new line of bat- 
tle, carried forward the great feud of the Red Rose against 
the White, the Beauchamp tower was choked for many 
reigns with those who on either side went down in that 
pitiless fight. 

Some of these men wrote records of their passage on 
these walls ; not men of the first rank always ; not the 
prime leaders in bloody fields, but mostly their compan- 
ions in defeat — men who in happier days would have 
pricked their names into the stones of the Colosseum and 
the Great Pyramid. Much true history is graven on these 
walls ; for even though the tablets may have been wrought 
by men of the second rank, the chiefs, no doubt, stood by 
while the artists toiled. The inner eye may catch in yon 
deep recess by the window-sill the figure of some spent 
hero, scarred from either Flodden Field or Nevill's Cross, 
standing apart from his fellows, dumb with pride, and gaz- 
ing with scorn and pity on such work. 

One of the early groups contains the names of three 
men who fell into trouble through that wild passage in our 
contest with the Italian Church called the Pilgrimage of 
Grace. 



80 Her Majesty's Tower. 

Cut into the wall as with a sword we read : 

SARO : FIDELI : 
INGGRAM PERCY 

1537- 

The author of this record was Sir Ingram Percy, third 
son of Algernon, fifth Earl of Northumberland; a younger 
brother of Henry the Unthrifty, once a lover of Anne Bo- 
leyn ; and of Sir Thomas Percy, the dashing knight who 
bore the banner of St. Cuthbert on the Don. 

Also cut into the wall we read : 

WILLIAM BELMALAR 

And in another place : 

RAVLEF BULMAR 
1537- 

Sir William and Sir Ralph Buhner (the name was spelt 
in a dozen ways) were border chiefs. The head of their 
house was that stout Sir William, a cousin to Lord Dacre 
of the North, who had served on the Duke of Richmond's 
council, and held the Lord Warden's commission as Lieu- 
tenant of the Eastern March. Stout Sir William Buhner 
had two sons, John and William ; men who followed the 
profession of arms, as that profession was understood in the 
border lands. The old knight had given his boys a start 
in life by getting them knighted, and put in a way to earn 
their bread. Sir John, the elder, had been sent to the Irish 
Pale ; Sir William, the younger, had got the command of 
Norham Castle, a fortress on the great north road. The 
King's favour had descended to the son and to the son's 
son. Sir Ralph, a son of Sir John, was made an officer on 
the border, with a company of fifty mounted men. 

Elsewhere on the wall we read: 



The Pilgrimage of Grace. 81 

ADAM : SEDBAR 
ABBAS : JOREVALL 
1537- 

Adam Sedburgh was the last reigning Abbot of the great 
Yorkshire Monastery of Jervaulx (pronounced Gerviss) in 
the north riding; a monastery which was famous for its 
beauty even in the shire of Bolton and Fountains, and 
which is still gratefully remembered in the county for hav- 
ing beaten the whole world in two great Yorkshire arts — 
the breeding of horses and the making of cheese. 

These men bore a part in the Pilgrimage of Grace. The 
names of Robert Aske, Lord Darcy, and Sir Robert Con- 
stable, are not found on these walls ; neither are those of 
William Thirske, Abbot of Fountains, Sir Thomas Percy, 
Sir John Bulmer, and Madge Cheyne, the wild fanatic who 
is sometimes described as Sir John's paramour, sometimes 
as his wife. All these personages were brought into the 
Tower ; but they passed through it and left no sign. 

The Pilgrimage of Grace was a rising in the rude north- 
ern shires against the reforming King, Council, and House 
of Commons, in favour of the Spanish princess and the 
Roman Church ; a movement set on foot by idle speeches 
from Lord Darcy of Darcy, Lord Dacre of the North, and 
other great barons ; but which passed out of their cautious 
hands into those of ignorant clods, and hardly less ignorant 
country squires ; men who stood by their priests and friars, 
and who, had their strength been equal to their will, would 
have thrown down their country at the feet of Spain. 

The divorce of Queen Catharine and the bull of Paul the 
Third had produced among the lower ranks in these north- 
ern shires a ferment for which the men of Kent and Essex 
were unprepared. In the home counties, opinion was with 
the King. In London, and in all the provinces lying near 

D2 



82 Her Majesty's Tower. 

London, the creed and the cause of Spain had fallen at a 
word — had fallen at once, and for ever ; the decrees which 
were to frame a true English order in the family and in the 
church, having been issued by the commons long before 
they were put into legal phrase by Parliament and King. 
Not so in the north. The partition of England into two 
church provinces was in the reign of Henry the Eighth, 
but echo to an actual fact. The Trent was like the Tweed ; 
a border line between counties jealous of each other ; coun- 
ties apt to fall out, and when they fell out, to fight. The 
two provinces had a different custom, in some things a dif- 
ferent law. York was a great capital ; Yorkshiremen spoke 
with contempt of the city on the Thames ; and most men 
living beyond the Trent thought shame of the King for not 
holding his Court and Parliament in York. Yet, in every 
point of culture and civility, the northern shires were a 
century behind those of the south and west. All that 
made England great, all that Avas helping to make her free, 
was found in that reign, not on the Humber and the Tyne, 
but on the Severn and the Thames. The thinkers who 
were moulding her mind, the poets who were fixing her 
speech, the politicians who were shaping her laws, were 
men of the southern race. Below the Trent, the peasant 
was better clothed, the gentleman was better served, the 
parson was better read, than their fellows above that 
stream ; and any fight for sway between north and south 
was in fact a conflict of the brooding darkness against the 
growing light. 

Those silent changes in the state of public thought which 
made the first great acts of the reforming council — the de- 
fiance of Spain and Rome, the establishment of an English 
church, the suppression of monks and friars, — so welcome 
in the south, had no true counterpart in the shires beyond 
the Trent. In those counties there was hardly any public 



The Pilgrimage of Grace. 83 

thought to change. In Yorkshire and Northumberland, 
men saw few travellers and read no books. They roamed 
through their native dales, they tented on their native 
wolds, from youth to age ; loud of oath, and fierce in fight ; 
proud of their dogs, their horses, and their wives ; ready 
for either a bout of sticks or a bout of ale ; but chained to 
one place, at feud with the world, dependent on the wan- 
dering friars, with never a thought in their great strong 
heads. Coarse in manner and rude in speech, they were 
not so shocked as southerners by the immoralities of their 
spiritual guides. They owed a good deal to monks, and 
they had much to learn from priests. In an age when few 
men could read and cypher, it was a benefit to the grazier 
to have a learned man call at his house, who could cast up 
his tallies and see that he got his own. The friars Avho 
dwelt in these dales were perhaps of better and stouter 
stuff. Certainly the cloisters of Jervaulx had no such evil 
reputation as the cloisters of St. Augustine. When a York- 
shire man mentioned Jervaulx, he spoke proudly of the fine 
horses and the good cheese to be found in that abbey. 
When a Kentish man mentioned St. Augustine's, he spoke 
bitterly of the insolent Abbot and his dissolute monks. 
While the laity of Kent were rejoicing over the ruin of 
St. Augustine's, the friars of Jervaulx were regarded by the 
laity of York as the peasant's best friends. 

Hence, when Darcy of Darcy, and Dacre of the North, 
gave tongue on the changes being made in London, the 
common folk took up the tale with a clatter of hoofs and 
pikes which echoed through the land. 

Some old political feeling mingled with the fray. York 
was still sore on account of Bosworth Field. In the last 
struggle of the Red and the White Roses, she had gone 
down in her armour, while the victors on that field had 
been her masters ever since. She burned to avenge that 



84 Her Majesty^s Tower, 

shame. King Henry, it is true, united in his person the 
claims of both Lancaster and York ; and but for his change 
of belief and the bull of Pope Paul, no man, however hot 
for blows, would have dreamed of questioning his right to 
reign. But he was quarrellmg with their lord the Pope. 
He was tampering with their ancient laws. He was sepa- 
rating them from the universal Church. Under such con- 
ditions, it was right to tell him, in no doubtful terms, that 
his safety lay in harking back, in taking his old wife, in 
keeping to the ancient lines. If he refused good counsel, 
the heavens might fall upon his head and leave them free. 
Should he fight and fail, the settlement made after Bos- 
worth Field could be reversed. Then a Lancastrian prince 
had taken a White Rose to wife ; now a Yorkist prince 
might marry a Red one. A prince of the line of Edward 
the Fourth would not be far to seek. There was Court- 
ney, there was Pole ; either of whom, by marrying Queen 
Catharine's daughter, the Princess Mary, would imite the 
rival houses in a second bond. With either of these princes 
on the throne, Yorkshire would be satisfied, and religion 
would be saved. 

When the royal decree for putting down monastic houses 
reached Yorkshire, mobs rose upon the King's commission- 
ers; hooting them from the towns, tearing up their proc- 
lamations, and in more than one town clubbing them to 
death. In place of standing by the law, the gentry looked 
on in silence. Show of authority was gone. The magis- 
trates fled ; the citizens snatched up pike and bill ; and the 
barons, whose foolish clatter had roused this storm, retired 
to their fortified houses, on pretence of guarding those 
strongholds for the King. Northumberland lay at Wres- 
sil, Darcy at Pomfret. All the border was in uproar, and 
no man knew what he ought to do. Then, the monks came 
out and made their game. Fathers sallied forth from the 



Hie Pilgrimage of Grace. 85 

abbeys of Fountains, Jervaulx, Hexham, and Lannercost, 
calling on the people to rise up in defence of the King and 
Holy Church. They laid the blame of all evil at Crom- 
well's door. Cromwell, they said, was putting down con- 
vent and abbey in order that he might levy a tax for the 
King on marriages, births, and deaths. Cromwell was a 
devil, and the first demand of the saints must be Crom- 
well's head. This rising must be a Pilgrimage of Grace. 
The stout Yorkshire lads must march on London ; deliver 
their king from his evil councillors ; restore Queen Catha- 
rine to his bed and board ; hang Cromwell like a dog ; re- 
vive the religious houses ; and see that their father the 
Pope got his own again. These friars supported their ap- 
peals with prophetic tales. The Prior of Maldon told the 
story of an ancient man, who had said the Church would 
suffer dole for three years and then flourish as before ; also 
of another ancient man, who had said the King would be 
forced to fly from his realm, and on coming back from be- 
yond sea would be glad to reign over two-thirds of his 
former land. 

These dreamers were going back to the Heptarchy ; and 
thinking of a new Catholic kingdom on the north of 
Trent. 

The friars prepared an oath, which they put to every 
man they met ; a pledge to stand by the King and Holy 
Church. Vast crowds were taking up the cross, and stick- 
ing on their breasts the pilgrim's sign ; a scroll displaying 
the five wounds of Christ. But as yet the Catholic host 
was without a general; the great barons would not de- 
scend from their castles into the streets ; and the mob, aft- 
er yelling through twenty courtyards *A chief! a chief!' 
began to seize on leaders by force and chance. These 
louts believed that if they could catch a man and put him 
to the oath, he would become their own for weal and woe ; 



86 Her Majesty's Tower. 

bound by a compact from which he could never break. 
More than once, it was proposed in their camp to make a 
dash into Norfolk, carry off the Duke, Anne Boleyn's uncle, 
and put him to the oath. 

One Robert Aske, a gentleman of middle age, was rid- 
ing home to London from a hunting-party at his cousin 
Ellerkar's place in Yorkshire, when he was seized by a 
band of pilgrims near Appleby, put to the oath, and sa- 
luted Captain of the host ! The choice seemed droll 
enough. Aske was a London lawyer, who knew nothing 
about war, and had never seen a camp. Yet here he was, 
on a Yorkshire wold, with a general's staff, in the midst 
of a swarm of men; some of them mounted, most of them 
armed, all of them hot with passion ; clamouring to be led 
on London in defence of the King and Holy Church. 

Aske, thus suddenly armed with power for either good 
or evil, looked around him. A man of the north, he felt 
with the louts and churls who had thrust the sword into 
his hand ; but he knew, as a northern man, that for any 
any rising of these commons to have a chance, it must be 
led by the ancient lords of the soil ; by the Percies of Aln- 
wick, by the Darcys of Darcy ; not by an unknown com- 
moner like himself These captains he made up his mind 
to seek. New men were coming daily into camp; Bul- 
mers, Danbys, Tempests, Moncktons, Gowers ; and the 
great barons, even those who held the King's commission, 
were supposed to share in the general hope. Why was not 
Percy in the camp ? 

Henry Percy, sixth Earl of Northumberland, was the 
man of highest rank and power then living beyond the 
Trent. Li the antiquity of his line, in the fame of his fa- 
thers, in the extent of his possessions, he stood without a 
rival. Lord of Alnwick, Wressil, Leckinfield, and other 
strong places, he kept the state and exercised the power 



The Pilgrimage of Grace, 87 

of a prince ; having his privy council, his lords and grooms 
of the chamber, his chamberlains, treasurers, purse-bearers, 
some of which offices were hereditary in gentle houses ; to- 
gether with his dean of the chapel, his singers, his scribes, 
and no less than ten officiating priests. He was the King's 
deputy in the north ; Warden of the East March and the 
Middle March ; the fountain of all authority in the border 
lands. If any man could be made a prince of a new king- 
dom of the north, Percy was that man. 

Like his neighbours, Percy had been slow to follow 
the great changes then going on in London. As yet, the 
names of Catholic and Protestant had not been heard in 
Yorkshire. Those who were now in arms for the Kino; 
and Holy Church had risen in favour of old ways and old 
things ; in favour of Queen Catharine, of monks and friars, 
of religious houses ; points on which the Earl took much 
the same view as his tenants and friends. But Henry was 
unthrifty ; a weak and ailing man, who had never got over 
his love for Anne Boleyn ; and who was mourning in his 
great house at Wressil, on the Derwent, her starless fate. 
When Aske and a body of riders dashed into the court- 
yard of Wressil, shouting * A Percy, a Percy !' the King's 
Warden of the Marches slipped into bed, and sent out 
word that he was sick. The Pilgrims would not take this 
answer. They wanted a Percy in their camp ; Earl Henry 
if it might be ; so that folk could say they were marching 
under the King's flag, with law and justice on their side. 
Aske sent fresh messages into the sick room; either the 
Earl or his brothers, Sir Thomas and Sir Ingram, he said, 
must join the camp. Now these young knights were only 
too quick to obey his call. Henry made a feeble protest ; 
and after they were gone, he revoked the commissions 
which they held under him as officers in the East and Mid- 
dle Marches. Catharine, their mother^ widow of the fifth 



88 Uef Majesty's Tower. 

Earl, detained them with tears over what she felt would be 
their doom. She came of a house which had known the 
Tower and the block too well ; her uncle being that Duke 
of Somerset who was executed by Edward the Fourth ; her 
great-grandsire, that Earl of Warwick who had given his 
name to Beauchamp tower; but her sons, though they 
paused for a moment at her warning cries, soon leapt to 
horse, and, clad in flashing steel and flaunting plume, rode 
forward into camp, where the Pilgrims received them 
with uproarious joy. That shining steel and that dazzling 
plume were afterwards cited as evidence that they had 
joined the Pilgrims by deliberate choice ; and his fine at- 
tire caused one of the brothers to lose his head. 

Some thirty thousand Pilgrims of Grace began their 
march towards London, where they meant to hang Lord 
Cromwell, and give the Pope his own. York, after short 
parley with the Cai^tain, opened her gates. On entering 
the chief northern stronghold, Aske, now master of the coun- 
try beyond Ilumber, announced that all monks and nuns 
who had been driven from their houses should be restored, 
and that the King's tenants, to whom abbey lands and 
buildings had been let, should be expelled. Few of the 
King's tenants waited for his bands to oust them ; but leav- 
hig, for a time, the fields which they had ploughed, and the 
granaries which they had stored, they fled for safety be- 
yond the Trent. Aske advanced on Pomfret Castle, the 
surrender of which by Lord Darcy gave him the command 
of Barnsdale up to the gates of Doncaster. Darcy, cap- 
tured at Pomfret, was put to the oath, and hailed a leader ; 
as were also Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Ingram Percy, Sir John 
Buhner, and many more ; though the rank of Captain still 
remained with Aske. 

At Doncaster bridoje the Pilo^rims came to a halt : the 
Duke of Norfolk, a great soldier and an able councillor, the 



The Pilgrimage of Grace. 89 

hero of Flodden Field and Wissant Bay, having been sent 
up north by the King, to seize and hold that passage of the 
Don. Aske was extremely strong in horse. Sir Thomas 
Percy, glittering in steel, and bearing St. Cuthbert's ban- 
ner, was followed by five thousand mounted men. The 
borders sent as many more. In all, twelve thousand horse- 
men waited the signal to advance. The Duke, though his 
force was weaker in numbers, kept a firm front to the 
north ; waiting for his reserves to come in ; negotiating 
with the chiefs ; sending heralds through the towns ; tempt- 
ing Darcy to his side; and operating everywhere for time. 

Before his reserves had come up, the campaign was over. 
The Duke had beaten the lawyer in a game of words, end- 
ing in a treaty of peace, which the two parties were left 
free to understand in a different sense. 

The Captain thought he had gained his point ; the Duke 
felt sure that he had gained his point. In the meantime, 
the northern men, on laying down their arms, received a 
king's pardon, and rode off to their several homes. In a 
few days, the rebels were scattered to the four winds, nev- 
er to meet again in strength ; while the King's forces kept 
the field, as lawful guardians of the public peace. The 
Yorkshiremen fancied the King had agreed to govern in 
the old spirit ; to hold a Parliament in York ; to receive 
comj^laints from his disloyal subjects; to restore the relig- 
ious houses ; to put away Cromwell ; and to give back all 
that he had taken from the Pope. 

Thus ended, in delusion and doubt, the Pilgrimage of 
Grace. The ruin caused by that rising in the north was 
yet to come. 



90 Her Majesty's Toioer. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

MADGE CHEYNE. 

When the three Bulmer knights, Sir John, Sir William, 
and Sir Ralph, rode into the Pilgrim camp, they brought 
with them a wild creature, who was sometimes called the 
wife, oftentimes called the paramour, of Sir John. Her 
name was Margaret Cheyne, bnt in the rough border 
speech she was only known as Madge. She talked of her- 
self as Lady Bulmer, and in loose border fashion she may 
have gone through some rite which made her believe she 
was a lawful spouse. But in the legal process taken 
against her afterwards in London, she was described with 
the coarse accuracy of an indictment as Margaret Cheyne ; 
all claim to the rank of Lady Bulmer being set aside. Sir 
John had a second wife, either living or dead, in Ann Bigod 
of Musgrove, who was the mother of his son Sir Ralph. 

In those times, the border laws as to man and wife were 
vague and feeble ; good enough for trolls and callants ; not 
of much force when applied to women of spirit and men of 
wit. Madge was a woman of very high spirit ; and Sir 
John, though he could not be called a man of wit, was one 
who lived by that coarse substitute for wit — his sword. 
Neither of the twain could boast a very clean record in the 
past. Mad blood ran through the lady's veins. She was 
a love-child of that Edward, Duke of Buckingham, who had 
left the Tower as Lord High Constable of England, to come 
back poor Edward Stafford. Sir John had not only missed 
his chance of fame, but covered himself with the obloquy 
which a soldier would rather die than bear. Lord Surrey, 



Madge Cheyne. 91 

the Lord Lieutenant, had broken him and dispersed his 
troop. Coming back to his eyrie in the Cleveland hills, a 
place on the slope of Eston Nab, called Wilton Castle, re- 
mote from roads and men, and suiting, in its savage beau- 
ty of marsh and fell, the soreness of his spirit, the border 
knight was still further tried by the loss of his old and 
profitable command on the Tweed. 

But the news which year by year came down from Lon- 
don to Sir John and his partner Madge, news brought into 
the Yorkshire dales by wandering friars, were not of a kind 
to vex his soul ; for thoy told him of things being wrong 
at court, of doubt and strife in the council, of messages go- 
ing and coming between King and Pope, of prophecies ut- 
tered by the Maid of Kent ; and all these signs of trouble 
in the south had given promise of employment to the bor- 
der-man. William, third Lord Dacre of the North, his 
cousin, was sore in spirit like himself, owing the court a 
grudge, not only on religious, but on personal grounds. 
From Lord Dacre, Sir John took up the tale of sedition, 
and when the Pilgrimage of Grace began, he was one of 
the first gentlemen in the dales to march. But hate had 
more to do with his resolve than love ; for the Duke, who 
was coming up north against the Pilgrims, was the very 
man who had broken him as a soldier and branded him as 
a coward. Eager to break a lance with Norfolk, Bulmer 
rode into camp, attended by his son, his brother, and his 
faithful Madge. 

Now Madge, who was a devout woman, if not an honest 
wife, brought with her into the Pilgrim camp not only her 
high blood and her bickering tongue, but Father Stanhouse, 
her family priest. Madge, like Sir John, had her grudge 
against the Duke. Norfolk was her kinsman ; she said 
lier brother-in-law, since he was married to her sister, the 
Lady Elizabeth Stafford ; and many others besides Madge 



92 Her Majesty'' s Tower. 

Cheyne thought he might have done more to save the 
Duke, her father, from Wolsey's malice. Madge thought 
herself equal to her enemy, since her father was a duke, 
like Norfolk, and her father's daughter was Norfolk's wife. 
All that lay between them was, in her opinion, a phrase, 
and a ring. But the day was now come for vengeance. 
Many other females put on the pilgrim's badge, but no 
woman in the crowd disputed the foremost place assumed 
by Madge. The woman was equal to all demands upon 
her. If any hard thing was to be said, she was prompt 
with the cruel word. If any bad deed was to be suggest- 
ed, she was quick with the fatal hint. She roamed through 
the Pilgrim camp, crying out for blood. She wanted Crom- 
well's blood. She wanted Norfolk's blood. At first, the 
death of these two noblemen would have slaked her thirst ; 
but as days went on and difficulties rose in her path, she 
cried out for other and humbler blood. 

When the Pilgrims went home from Doncaster, and the 
leaders were invited to lay their complaints before the 
King, Madge spurned the offer, preferring the solitudes of 
Eston Nab before the gaieties of a faithless court. Aske 
rode up to London, where he saw the King, and almost fell 
a victim to his courtly grace. Sir John sent up his son. 
Sir Ralph, to feel the ground, meaning to join him in Lon- 
don if all seemed well at court. But Madge would neither 
go nor allow Sir John to go. ' Ride to London !' she ex- 
claimed ; ' she would never ride to London until Cromwell 
and the Duke were hung.' At Wilton Castle she had her 
confessor, Father Stanhouse, a man of like grit with her- 
self; a wild and passionate fellow, who tramped through 
the dales and towns, taunting the gentry with the shame 
of living as pardoned rebels, telling them that Norfolk was 
now master of every man's land and life, calling; upon them 
to stand by the Spanish princess and by Holy Church, 



Madge Cheyne. 93 

Father Stanhouse was only one of many priests who 
raised their parable against what they called the deception 
of Doncaster. From Fountains, Jervaulx, and Hexham, 
bands of friars came forth ; men who had been turned out 
of their stalls ; and these men spread themselves through 
the country, preaching against Cromwell and Norfolk; 
whispering in too willing ears that the pardon was a snare, 
that the King was forsworn, that no parliament would be 
held in York, that no petition from the Commons would be 
received, that the whole north would be lost when the King 
had thrown his garrisons into Newcastle, Scarborough, and 
Hull, towns on the coast which could be victualled and 
supported from the sea. Under such preachers of sedition 
the dalesmen were prepared for some new Pilgrimage of 
Grace. 

The new movement preached by these monks was to 
differ from the first in this grand point — it was to be a 
movement of the CommonSo The knights and squires had 
played their game ; they had been beaten and must stand 
aside. Some voices called them traitors ; others branded 
them as cowards. What was the upshot of their parley 
with the Duke ? A pardon, which was not a pardon, but a 
sentence. Nothing had been gained. The Pilgrims had 
been checked at the bridge only because Darcy was afraid 
to march, and Aske was ignorant of war. That day was 
lost ; but the north was still strong in numbers and stout 
in faith. Of the sixty thousand brave lads who had sworn 
the Pilgrim's oath, not a hundred had gone over to the 
King. All that was now wanting to success was a move- 
ment of the Commons. 

Adam Sedburgh, Abbot of Jervaulx, and William Thirske, 
Abbot of Fountains, lent the weight of their names and of- 
fices to these appeals. 

Hardly less ominous than the tone adopted by the Com- 



94 Her Majesty''s Tower, 

mons and the friars was the attitude taken by the defeated 
gentry. Knight and squire, after marching proudly to the 
Don, could not be made to see that the treaty had left them 
in the position of pardoned rebels ; of men who had forfeit- 
ed their ancient standing and their ancient rights. They 
found their neighbours in no easy mood ; and many a squire 
who had been hard and high in his former state was taught 
to feel how weak even rich and big men may become when 
they cease to have law and power upon their side. 

No two gentlemen north of the Trent had more rebuffs 
to bear than Sir Thomas and Sir Ingram Percy. When 
they set out on the Pilgrimage of Grace, Earl Henry, their 
brother, as Warden of the East and Middle Marches, had 
recalled their commissions of lieutenancy in the border 
lands, giving them to Robert Lord Ogle, and Sir Raynold 
Carnaby, gentlemen of the county who stood well affected 
to the King. Ogle, a kinsman of the Earl, was made his 
lieutenant in the Eastern March ; Carnaby, a gentleman of 
his bedchamber, was made his lieutenant in the Middle 
March. But this transfer of the border power was one of 
those changes which Sir Thomas and Sir Ingram could not 
accept. When tlie conference on the bridge broke up. Sir 
Thomas rode back to his house at Pridhow, and called to 
his side the men of Hexham and Tynedale ; while Sir In- 
gram rode to Alnwick Castle, whence he summoned the lo- 
cal gentry to meet him at Rothbury. To these acts of the 
pardoned rebels. Lord Ogle and Sir Raymond Carnaby ob- 
jected in their capacity of lieutenants to the King's ward- 
en, whose commission they held ; on which Sir Thomas and 
Sir Ingram Percy railed in all places against these officers 
— most of all against Sir Raynold, whom they treated as a 
mere lacquey in their brother's house. Sir Thomas sent a 
gang of dalesmen into Sir Raynold's lands — fellows who 
laid waste his farms, entered his house, and stole his plate. 



Madge Cheyne. 95 

At the same time, in defiance of the border lieutenants, Sir 
Ingram Percy began swearing the gentry of Alnwick and 
Rothbury to stand by each other, shoulder to shoulder, for 
the honour of God and the good of Holy Church. 

Poor folk were at their wits' end. No man could tell 
on which side lay the law ; for, while Carnaby asserted in 
a meek voice that Ae, lieutenant of the Middle March, was 
the only man to speak in the King's name. Sir Thomas 
Percy declared that Ae, and he only, was the warden's true 
representative in those parts. The loud voice and the 
haughty bearing won the day. Most men believed Sir 
Thomas must be right ; and Carnaby, who could do noth- 
ing save complain to the sick warden, had to hide himself 
in Chillingham Castle from the attacks of his turbulent foe. 

Men were in these cross humours when news came down 
from Sir Ralph Buhner, warning his father to look well to 
himself, as things were going all wrong at Court. Madge 
leapt to her feet. ' If only one man will stir,' she screamed, 
* the whole country will be up.' Father Stanhouse sup- 
ported her. ' Now,' cried the priest, ' is the time to rise — 
now or never.' 

Norfolk was on his way to the north ; some said with 
a great army to waste the land ; others said with a free 
pardon in his pocket, and the writs for a new Parliament 
to be held in York. Which was the true report ? Abbot 
Adam, of Jervaulx, sent his man Simon Jaxon, into Lin- 
colnshire, on pretence of collecting rents from the abbey 
farms ; but with instructions to observe the state of things ; 
to see whether men were standing for king or pope ; to lie 
about Newark until the Duke should come ; and then bring 
news of the King's army, whether his company was large 
or small. 

Lord Ogle, as lieutenant of the East March, called a court 
of the border, by proclamation, at Morpeth; but Ogle 



96 Her Majesty's Tower. 

proved to be as feeble in presence of these rough Percies 
as poor Carnaby himself. Sir Thomas sent forth a counter- 
proclamation, declaring that Lord Ogle had no right to 
hold a border court, and calling on his friends and tenants 
to meet him in Morpeth and resist the attempt by force. 
Sir Ingram put himself in harness ; called on his men, and 
rode from Alnwick Castle into Morpeth on the appointed 
day. Ogle now fell back — afraid, as he said, in excuse, of 
blood being shed, until the King should send him his or- 
ders what to do. Sir Ingram had some show of the law 
on his side, which his brother Sir Thomas had not ; a lucky 
fact for him when the transactions in which they were now 
engaged came under the eyes of twelve impartial men. 
Sir Ingram had persuaded the Abbot of Alnwick, a man 
devoted to his Church, to ride over to Wressil, in York- 
shire, and get from the sick Earl a commission for Ingram 
to act as a deputy warden in the eastern March. The Ab- 
bot rode to Wressil and saw the Earl, to whom he told a ly- 
ing story of Sir Ingram being now a true liegeman to the 
King ; one who could do his grace high service in the. un- 
settled borders, if he could only have a writing to that ef- 
fect under his brother's hand. Henry, who heard this tale 
Avith pleasure, gave the Abbot such paj^ers as he desired, 
naming his brother deputy and sheriif ; though he made it 
a condition that Sir Ingram should serve for that year 
without pay, since the King had been already put to the 
full amount of his border charge. 

Sir Ingram sent no answer as to whether he would act 
or not ; but he kept the papers, which bore the warden's 
signature and seal, in order that he might silence any man 
who should challenge him for preventing Lord Ogle's court. 

When news was brought from Newark by Simon Jaxon 
that Norfolk was coming with a strong army, the whole 
border began to throb with life ; church-bells were rung, 



Madge Cheyne. 97 

and a fire was lighted on Eston Nab. Some rioters seized 
on Beverley, a town in which the Percy tenantry Avere 
strong. Sir Francis Bigod raised the banner of Holy 
Church. * Now is the time,' cried Madge to her sluggish 
lover; 'now is the time; Bigod is in the field; up, up and 
join them.' Bigod was the brother of Bulmer's wife. But 
the country was too much cowed for this revolt to grow, 
and an attempt which was made on Hull not only failed, 
but compromised Aske. The spirit of the first Pilgrimage 
could not be revived ; for no one could now be deceived 
by the cry of King and Holy Church ; and every man who 
took up arms was well aware that he was putting a halter 
round his neck. 

Henry the Unthrifty rose from his sick bed and went to 
York, hoping to save his brothers and to serve his King. 
There Sir Ingram joined him, in the mad belief that the 
dying man could be persuaded to throw in his lot with the 
commons who were dreaming of a second Pilgrimage of 
Grace. Henry was sad and stern ; Ingram hot and silly. 
' Cromwell,' cried the young knight, * should be hanged as 
high as men could see ;' and when his brother turned on 
him in pity, the madman added, ' Yes ; and be I present, as 
I wish to God I may be, I will thrust my sword into his 
belly.' 

The Earl, too weak to arrest his brother on the spot, as 
he should have done, if only to keep him out of harm, re- 
voked the warrant which he had given him as dej)uty and 
sheriff, so that Ingram had no longer a shadow of author- 
ity for what he was about to do. But the withdrawal of 
his warrant was not yet known beyond the gates of York, 
and he made it his first affair to prevent the news from 
going north. Of course, his brother would write to Lord 
Ogle and his other deputies ; and he laid a plan for inter- 
cepting his brother's letters. Some of his men were plant- 

E 



98 Her Majesty's Tower, 

cd in the king's highway, along which the messenger would 
have to ride; and when the carrier came up they seized 
his bridle, tumbled him from his seat, rifled his sack, and 
opened the letters which they found. It was a daring 
crime, for the warden was the king's deputy, and his serv- 
ant, travelling on j)ublic duty, was regarded by the law as 
the king's OAvn man. To stop him by force, and break 
oi^en his sealed despatches, was an oftence for w^hich the 
penalty was death. The criminals were baffled. Either 
the man had no letters for Lord Ogle, or he susi3ected foul 
play, and put them out of sight. 

Much of the border was now up; the oath was again 
put to men at the sword-point ; and every one who refused 
to swear it had to fly into some place of safety until calm- 
er times. Carnaby and his friends shut themselves up in 
Chillingham Castle ; a very strong place on the Till, which 
Sir Ingram tried to reduce, but with no success for the 
w^ant of heavy guns. These guns he made an eflbrt to ob- 
tain from the King's magazine of arms in Berwick ; by rep- 
resenting that he held a legal commission, and needed ar- 
tillery for the King's service. The falsehood of his asser- 
tions w^as found out in time. 

Sir John Buhner was not the last to declare himself, 
though his slowness to appear in the field drove Madge to 
despair. He wished to see the Commons out in force. *If 
the Commons will not rise,' cried Madge, ' let us begone ; 
let us flee away into another land.' Sir John took counsel 
with his priests. The clergy who heard the confessions of 
their flocks must surely know the state of men's minds ; 
and the cause being that of Holy Church, he had some 
right to know, from those who held all such secrets in their 
keeping, what the churls would do. So he sent Stanhouse 
to Father Frank, a popular priest, and Robert Hugill to 
the Vicar of Kirkby, to ask whether the dalesmen would 



Madge Chcyue. - 99 

rise against the King or no. ' If they will not rise,' said 
Madge, ' let us take ship for Scotland.' 

When Norfolk crossed the Ouse, the commotion began 
to droop. One day after mass in the chapel of AlnAvick 
Castle, Sir Ingram said to his brother: 'I am afraid the 
King and Commons will agree.' * Nay,' replied Sir Thom- 
as, ' that will not be so ; for the Commons have j^romised 
me never to agree without my knowledge.' Ingram felt 
sore. ' Tut,' cried his elder, ' they will never agree, without 
a pardon for all offences done ; therefore let us do Avhat we 
think, and that Avhilst we may.' But their little hour was 
gone. While they were talking in the chapel, the officers 
of justice were on their track ; not a pike was lifted by the 
Commons in their defence ; and the splendid young knights 
were soon on their way to the Tower. 

One wild scheme came into the crazy pates on Eston 
Kab. Sir John and Madge proposed to descend from their 
hold into the towns; to raise the men of Guisborough, 
among whom the monks had much sway ; and try a dash- 
ing blow at the ducal camp. If they could seize the Duke, 
and carry him by force to Wilton Castle, they fancied that 
something good might come of such a deed. They could 
either sell him to the King, or send him to the devil. But 
while they were dreaming of this bold attempt the officers 
were at hand, and in a few hours Sir John and Madge 
w^ere also marching south. 

William Thirske and Adam Sedburgh, abbots of Fount- 
ains and Jervaulx, were also on the road. 

The procession of Pilgrims was long and doleful; but 
the foremost offenders were only too soon at Tyburn tree. 

Darcy, Aske, Bigod, Constable, were quickly put away. 
Sir Thomas Percy and Sir John Bulmer pleaded guilty. 
Madge did the same. They were all condemned to die; 
poor Madge by lire. The bill against Sir Ralph was 
dropped. 



100 Her Majeniifs Toicer, 

Aclam, abbot of Jervaulx, pleaded not guilty. He had 
not willingly joined the rebels. He could not deny that 
he had fed them from the abbey larder, and that he had 
given them money; but the meat was given in charity, 
and the money for services in tending the abbey sheep. 
Neither could he deny being out with the Pilgrims ; but 
he explained to his judges, that when the rebels knocked 
at the abbey gate and called upon him to come forth, he 
slipped away by a back door and hid himself for three 
days and nights in Witton fell; but being tracked by 
scouts, he was brought into the camp by force. 

A jury brought him in guilty, and he was hung at Ty- 
burn, in company with Sir Thomas Percy, Sir John Bulmer, 
and William Thirske. 

Sir Ralph Bulmer was pardoned in the following year, 
and restored in blood by Edward the Sixth, when he went 
back to Eston Nab, a wiser and a poorer man. 

Sir Ingram Percy, like Sir John Bulmer, had lived with 
a woman in the lawless border way. When he died, in 
the year of his pardon, he left a daughter by this para- 
mour, for whom he made special provision in his will. 
Two centuries after they were dead and gone, the story of 
this lawless love, and this illegitimate child, came to occu- 
py public attention for many years. Sir Ingram was the 
ancestor from whom Percy the Trunkmaker derived his 
claims. 

Madge Cheyne met the most terrible fate of all. The 
wild daughter of Buckingham was sentenced to die by fire ; 
and being carried in a cart to Smithfield, she was placed 
in the centre of a pile of faggots, and on the very spot 
where the Good Lord Cobham had been burnt, her pas- 
sionate life was licked up by the flames. 



Heirs to the Crown, lOl 



CHAPTER XIV. 

HEIES TO THE CROWN. 

Sixteen years after the Pilgrims of Grace had been hung 
and burnt alive for standing by the old faith, men and wom- 
en were being hung at Tyburn and burnt at Smithfield for 
standing by the new. A queen had risen who could not 
walk in her father's way; she was a Spanish, not an En- 
glish, queen ; and the men who had done her father's will 
were now being paid for that service to her house with a 
pile of faggots and a length of rope. 

A roll of drama now unfolds itself in the Good Lord 
Cobham's chamber ; the romance of three Queens, the 
epoch of English thought ; the opening scene of which 
drama was a contest for the crown. 

On what may be called the opening day of this new 
reign, the Beauchamp tower and some adjoining rooms and 
vaults, never until that day used as prisons, received into 
their embrace a family group ; for one of whom a fair and 
innocent girl, the world has never ceased to feel that sad 
and tender passion which a father nurses for the child 
whom he has loved and lost. 

That family group consisted of John Dudley, the proud 
Duke of Northumberland, Lord President of the Council ; 
John, Earl of Warwick, a youth of twenty-three ; Lord 
Ambrose Dudley, a younger son ; Lord Robert, a boy of 
twenty, but already the husband of Amy Robsart ; Lord 
Guilford, and Lord Henry still in their teens ; and that 
young wife of Guilford Dudley, who is known as the Nine 
Days' Queen. These noble folk were scattered through 



102 Her Majesty's Tower. 

the Tower ; Duke John in the Gate house, then called the 
Garden tower; Lord Ambrose and his youngest brother, 
Lord Henry, in the Nun's bower ; Queen Jane in the dep- 
uty-lieutenant's house; Lord Robert in the lower tier; 
Lord Gijilford in the middle tier of Beauchamp tower. 

John, Earl of Warwick, a laborious carver, left the work 
of his knife in many places on these walls. Some of his 
pieces are light and jesting ; all 

'The sadder that they make us smile.' 

On the north side of the chamber, just above the name 
of Adam Sedbar, abbot of Jervaulx, stand these four let- 
ters : 

JANE. 

On the same side of this room, but on the inner jamb of 
the recess, this name occurs a second time. 

These things are not her doing. Lady Jane never lodged 
in this chamber ; and after her nine days' reign was over, 
she never assumed the style of queen. They are the work 
of her partner in greatness — Lord Guilford ; a youth who 
was always whining to be king. 

From this family group of prisoners, two men and one 
woman were taken to the block ; an old warrior, a young 
bridegroom, and a lovely bride. All three made a good 
end of life ; though neither the stout soldier, nor the gal- 
lant youth, adorned the stake with so much patient beauty 
as that girl of seventeen summers, who had come to the 
end of her nine day's reign. 

The crime which sent her to the block was her royal 
blood ; and her story is a part of that great contention for 
the crown which brought so many princes of her family to 
the Tower. 

When Edward the Sixth died, the keenest wit in England 
could not tell in whom the right to succeed him lay. Law 



Heirs to the Croimi. 103 

was thought to be on one side, right on the other side. 
Parliament had been asked to settle, unsettle, and resettle 
the order in which the throne should go, so often, that 
every point of law and of fact had become confused, ex- 
cept that which seemed to lie in the power of nature and 
of habit. Every man said the sceptre ought to descend 
upon the true heir. But who was that true heir ? Those 
who had the best claims by blood appeared to have very 
poor claims by law. 

As King Edward left no issue, his crown fell back; first, 
upon his father's heirs ; next, upon his grandfather's heirs ; 
then upon the heirs of Edward the Fourth; afterwards, 
upon the heirs of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence ; 
finally, upon the heirs general of Edward the Third. These 
lines were represented by claimants more or less able to 
make good their right. 

The front rank consisted of not less than eight pretend- 
ers ; all of whom were women ? Of these eight women, 
not one had a clear title ;^two of them being aliens, while 
six were blemished in their birth. Here, then, was a sit- 
uation for the opening drama ; — eight females fighting 
for a crown which had never yet been worn on a female 
brow ! 

I. Princess Mary. 

II. Princess Elizabeth. 

The two sisters of Edward the Sixth had been set aside 
by acts of Council, acts of Parliament, acts of the Church, 
and so far as state decrees could put the King's sisters out 
of court, they were out of court. Their mothers had been 
cast away on the ground that they had never been lawful 
wives ; their birth had been assailed ; their titles had been 
quashed; their rank had been reduced; their rights, as 
king's children, had been extinguished. These public acts 
had never been repealed. In his old age, their father had 



104 Ile^T Majesty's Tower. 

in some sort owned his daughters ; but the act in which 
this show of justice had been done was of doubtful force, 
since the previous statutes which defined their bastardy 
were left untouched. Indeed, his act for regulating the 
succession had only named them, in so far as they were 
his children. They were not restored in blood ; they 
were not declared to have been lawfully born ; they were 
not adopted into the regal line, except as additional heirs, 
and with the risk of being excluded by a final will. 
Whether they had been excluded, or not, could only be 
known to the King's executors, who were supposed to 
have been sworn to secresy during King Edward's life. 

in. Maey Queen of Scots. 

IV. Princess Margaret. 

After the luckless sisters of King Edward, the Crown 
would pass to the heirs of Henry the Seventh. Now, 
Henry the Seventh had left behind him two daughters — 
the Princess Margaret and the Princess Mary, both of 
whom had issue living when he died. 

Margaret, the elder sister, had been married to James 
the Fourth, King of Scots, to whom she had borne a son, 
afterwards James the Fifth, father of Mary, the Queen of 
Scots. This Queen Mary, born on a foreign soil, was ex- 
cluded from her natural place in the order of succession 
by the Alien Act. But her mother, Queen Margaret, had 
left a second child. 

That field of Flodden, which put James the Fifth on his 
father's throne, made his mother. Queen Margaret, a widow 
— young enough for love, and ready enough to fall into dan- 
gerous w^ays. A very handsome fellow, Archibald Douglas, 
sixth Earl of Angus, caught her eye. He had a wife and 
daughter living; but the Scottish queen (true sister of 
Bluff Harry) cared little for law when her passions were 
on fire ; and in less than twelve months after the great 



Heirs to the Croion. 105 

disaster of Flodden Field, she took to herself the handsome 
and wedded thane. 

They used each other ill. Margaret was shrewd of 
tongue ; Angus fickle in the point of love. One child 
was born of this godless union ; little Princess Margaret, 
born within the border, to save her English rights. For a 
dozen years. Queen Margaret led a wretched life ; she 
quarrelled with her husband ; she left his house ; she went 
back to live with him ; she found him faithless to her ; she 
left him once again. The court was vexed with her 
troubles ; scandalised by his amours. At length the Queen 
procured a divorce from Rome, by which her marriage 
was declared null and void, on the ground that Angus 
had a wife alive when he took the Queen. 

This decree would have made poor little Margaret ille- 
gitimate ; but a brief was brought from Rome to the ef- 
fect that, since the mother had gone through the form of 
marriage in good faith, the child, though born in adultery, 
should be considered as lawful heiress of Archibald and 
Queen Margaret, just as though they had been actually 
man and wife ! Rome could do much in those days ; but 
Rome herself could not prevent rivals from laughing at a 
declaration which made a tavern jest of both law and fact. 

V. Peincess Frances. 

yi. Lady Jane. 

Mary, the younger child of Henry the Seventh, had 
been married to Louis the Twelfth, King of France (son 
of Duke Charles the Poet), who died, as it were, in his 
honeymoon. Within a few months of the King's demise. 
Queen Mary had been secretly united to her first lover, 
Charles Brandon, afterwards created Duke of Suffolk. By 
this second husband the Queen had issue two princesses — 
Frances and Elinor — to the first of whom her eventual 
rights descended, though not without legal flaw ; since, at 

E2 



106 Her 3Iajesty''s Toioer. 

the time of the Queen's marriage with Brandon, that 
nobleman had a wife alive. Frances had in turn been 
given to Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, a man of high 
birth, and of austere life ; but weak in character, short in 
vision, aj^t to go wrong when the reason for his going 
wrong seemed good ; a man of order and ideas, without 
will of his own, and with very little sense ; a man not 
born to mate with princes and fight for crowns. Here, 
again, that demon doubt was in a royal house ; for Grey, 
like Brandon, had a wife alive when he had wedded Fran- 
ces : Lady Catharine Fitz-Alan, sister of Henry, seventeenth 
Earl of Arundel ; a woman whom he had wedded in his 
early youth, and from whom he parted in view of the more 
brilliant bride. By his separation from Lady Catharine, 
Grey provoked the undying enmity of Lord Arundel, 
once his brother-in-law and dearest friend ; an enmity 
which lived through a score of years, which fed itself in 
secret, never dying out, until Arundel stood on Tower Hill 
gloating over his old friend's headless trunk. 

Created Duke of Sufiblk on account of his royal spouse, 
Grey imagined he could forget the wrongs which he had 
done to Lady Catharine — the insult which he had cast 
upon her house. Three daughters blessed his union ; 
Lady Jane, Lady Catharine, and Lady Mary ; all of whom 
as well as their mother Frances, were alive when King 
Edward died. The princess was a lady of meek temper 
and austere life ; humble, affectionate ; with little desire to 
shine in courts. Such pretensions as belonged to her 
blood she passed on to her children : first of all, to Lady 
Jane. 

YH. Cathaeine Pole.- 

The Poles, or De la Poles, went back to Princess Mar- 
garet, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence. This lady, 
who had been married to Sir Richard Pole, left four sons 



Heirs to the Crovm. 107 

— Henry Lord Montagu, Sir Geoffrey Pole, Arthur Pole, 
and Reginald Pole. Reginald was the able and restless 
intriguer known as Cardinal Pole. Lord Montagu had 
been caught in some plot, of Avhich his brother, the cardi- 
nal, was the secret mover, and sent to the block, leaving 
an only child, Catharine, who had now become the wife of 
Sir Francis Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, to represent his 
mother's line. 

VIH. The Infanta Isabel. 

A more remote, and perhaps a more menacing claim was 
that of the Infanta Doiia Isabel Clara of Spain — a lady 
who traced her line through the kings of Portugal to Prin- 
cess Philippa and John of Gaunt. 

Besides these ladies, there lay in the Tower, in some for- 
gotten cell, a male pretender in Edward Courtney, a youth 
whom nobody had seen since he was a child of twelve. 
He had no friends in power, and nobody fretted about his 
right ; yet he was a grandson of Princess Catharine, young- 
est daughter of Edward the Fourth, and thus he represent- 
ed the cause of York. 

All these claimants had their partisans; though the 
main interest gathered around the Princess Mary and the 
Lady Jane. Duke John, President of King Edward's 
Council, thought the legal right either lay with Lady Jane, 
or could be given to her by force. Jane was young, 
beautiful, accomplished, popular ; and if she came to her 
own, he, John Dudley, who had heard his father hooted 
through the streets, and seen him butchered like a dog, 
might live to hail a grandson on the throne. This bald, 
bad man had four 'sons living ; all young and of handsome 
presence; fellows who could draw, and dance, and play 
the lute, as well as they could ride, and joust, and run the 
ring. Three of these youths were already sealed away ; 
but Guilford, a boy of seventeen, was free ; and when the 



108 Her Majesty's Tower. 

Duke perceived that the King would die, and leave no 
heirs, he began to scheme for marrying Lord Guilford to 
Lady Jane. Mary was unpopular in London. Let Ed- 
ward now die, and as every rein of the government would 
be in Dudley's grasp, Jane might become queen in her 
mother's right, without much cavil from Mary's friends. 
Such an event would be hailed as a triumph of England 
over Spain. 

The old schemer had not much trouble with Grey and 
his wife. These feeble folk were only too glad to put 
themselves and their child into the Duke's strong hands. 
To them, the Duke was not only the greatest man in En- 
gland, but one of the greatest men in Europe. As a sol- 
dier he had no equal ; as a statesman he was thought far- 
seeing and safe ; as a patriot he was held in high esteem. 
Most men believed him honest in his faith ; some went so 
far as to call him saint. Ridley, Rogers, Knox, and all 
their followers prayed for him as the soundest pillar of the 
reforming Church. 

Much of this high character had once belonged to the 
Duke of right, but the lust of power had crept into his 
blood and poisoned the springs of his religious life. 

Lady Jane, a soft and grave, though very lovely girl, 
who had been pinched and bobbed into learning by her 
parents, raised few obstacles to their scheme for her union. 
She had no liking for the Dudleys ; she had a little secret 
of her own ; but on hearing that the King, as well as both 
her parents, wished her to marry Guilford, she took her 
wedding with this youth like a lesson in Greek, or any 
other trial ; bowed her sweet head, and went with him, a 
child like herself, to church. On Wliit-Sunday the youth 
and maiden were united in holy wedlock at Durham house 
in the Strand, in the presence of many people ; the bride 
being dowered with Stanfield Hall in Norfolk ; a house 



The Nine Days* Queen, 109 

which even then had an ominous fame ; but the bride and 
groom were both so young, that when the rite was over, 
Lady Jane begged as an act of grace, that she might go 
home with her mother to Suffolk House, in South wark, un- 
til she and her husband were of riper age. 

Her wish was law ; but that riper age was not to come 
for either Guilford or Lady Jane. Six weeks after this 
parting of youth and maiden at the altar in Durham House, 
the King was dead, the throne was empty, and the hour 
for which Duke John had schemed was come. Now was 
to be found, through rough and ready tests, that ' true 
heir to the crown ' which Acts of Parliament were power- 
less to unmake. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE NINE days' QUEEN. 



King Edwaed died on the summer night of Thursday, 
July 6, at Greenwich Palace, so calmly, that the fact could 
be kept a secret all that night and all the next day, while 
Dudley matured his plans. The council were of his advice, 
the fleet and army at his back. On the city he could count 
for j)assive assent ; but passive assent was not enough. 
On Saturday morning he sent for Sir Thomas White, Lord 
Mayor, six aldermen, and a score of the richest merchants 
from Lombard Street, to whom he showed the King's body, 
and papers which he called the King's letters-patent, fixing 
the order of succession to the crown. These papers, which 
gave the sceptre to Lady Jane, Dudley got the Lord Mayor 
and citizens to sign. The Londoners were told to keep 
the King's death and the contents of these letters-patent 
secret, until the lords should make them known. Dudley's 



110 Her Majesty's Tower. 

plan was, that Edward's death should not be noised abroad 
until Mary had been lodged in the Tower, and Jane was 
ready to announce herself as Queen. 

When Edward was dying, Mary had been called to his 
bedside by the council, and she had come so near to Green- 
wich as the royal lodge of Hunsdon, twenty-five miles dis- 
tant. So soon as the King was dead. Lord Robert was 
sent off by Dudley with a party of mounted guards to 
bring her in. Once in the Tower, the unpopular princess 
would have found few knights to strike in her behalf. 

Dudley himself rode down to Sion, near Isleworth, his 
house on the Thames, to which Lady Jane had repaired. 
When Dudley summoned the Princess Mary to Greenwich 
he sent his wife to Suffolk House for Lady Jane. Frances, 
her mother, refused to give her up ; Jane herself preferred 
to stay in Southwark ; until the Duchess of N'orthumber- 
land fetched her son, who begged her, on her duty as a 
wife, to depart with him. IsTot liking to begin her married 
life by an act of disobedience. Lady Jane went with the 
Duchess and her son to Chelsea, where they locked her up 
till Sunday, on which day Lady Sydney, her husband's sis- 
ter, brought her a request from Dudley to repair at once 
to Sion, and await a message of highest moment from the 
King. She was not aware that Edward had been dead 
three days! 

The two ladies took boat at Chelsea. When Lady Jane 
arrived at Sion, the House was empty, but the great lords 
soon came dashing in ; the Duke himself, President of the 
Council ; William Parr, Marquis of Northampton, Grand 
Chamberlain, and brother of Queen Catharine Parr ; Fran- 
cis Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, husband of Catharine 
Pole ; William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, husband of 
Anne Parr, the Queen's sister ; Henry Fitz-Alan, the smil- 
ing and deadly Earl of Arundel ; accompanied by the Duch- 



TJie Nine Days' Queen. Ill 

ess of Northumberland and the Marchioness of ISTorth- 
ampton. Arundel and Pembroke fell on their knees, and 
were the first to kiss Lady Jane's hand as queen. 

B)^ help of these men and women the first and fatal part 
of Dudley's work was done. Jane fainted when they told 
her she was queen. She had loved King Edward with a 
sister's love ; read Avith him, played with him, shared his 
secrets and his hopes ; and when she heard that he was 
dead she swooned and sank upon her face. They told her 
she was queen by Edward's will, according to the Acts 
which vested the succession in the king. Pembroke and 
Arundel, who were famous soldiers, swore by their souls 
they would shed their blood and give their lives to main- 
tain her rights. Then Lady Jane stood up before the 
lords, saying she had never dreamt of such greatness being 
thrust upon her, but that if she was called to reign, she 
prayed for grace to act as might be best for God's glory 
and His people's good. 

The next day, being Sunday, she remained at Sion, sur- 
rounded by her husband's family ; the Duke giving orders 
of many kinds, instructing heralds, sending out proclama- 
tions, writing to the lords and sheriffs, and acting general- 
ly as protector. That night, the interregnum was to end, 
the new reign to begin. 

First Day. — On a bright July morning. Queen Jane em- 
barked in the royal barge at Sion, and followed by a cloud 
of galleys, bright with bunting, gay with music, riotous 
with cannon, dropt down the river, making holiday along 
the banks, passing the great Abbey, calling for an hour at 
Whitehall Palace, and for another hour at Durham House, 
and shooting through the arches of London Bridge. She 
landed at the Queen's stair about three o'clock, under the 
roar of saluting guns, and was conducted, through crowds 
of kneeling citizens, to her regal lodgings by the two Dukes, 



] 12 Her Majesty's Tower, 

the Marquises of Winchester and Northampton, Arundel, 
Pembroke, Paget, Westmoreland, Warwick ; all the great 
noblemen who had made her Queen. Her mother, Frances, 
bore her train ; and her husband, Guilford, walked by her 
side, cap in hand, and bowing low when she deigned to 
speak. The Lieutenant, Sir John Brydges, and his dep- 
uty, Thomas Brydges, received her majesty on their knees. 
At five o'clock she was proclaimed in the City, when the 
King's death was announced and his final testament made 
known. 

But the day was not to end in peace ; for after supper 
was over, and the Queen had gone to her rooms, the Mar- 
quis of Winchester, lord treasurer, brought up the private 
jewels, which he desired her to wear, and the royal crown, 
which he wished her to try on. Jane looked at the shin- 
ing toy, and put it from her, saying, 'It w^ill do.' Win- 
chester told her another crown would have to be made. 
Another crown! For whom must another crown be 
made ? For the Lord Guilford, said the Marquis, since he 
was to be crowned with her as king ! Crowned as king ! 
Surprised and hurt by what the treasurer had let fall, she 
sat in silent pain, until Guilford came into her room, when 
she broke into a fit of honest wrath. The crown, she said, 
was not a plaything for boys and girls. She could not 
make him king. A duke she had power to make, but only 
Parliament could make a man king. Guilford began to cry, 
and left the room. Li a few minutes he came back with his 
mother, still whimpering that he wanted to be king, and 
Avould not be a duke. The Queen was firm ; and after a hot 
scene the Duchess took her boy away, declaring that he 
should not live with an ungrateful wife. 

Second Day. — Bad news came in from the eastern shires. 
When Lord Robert had got to Hunsdon his prize was lost ; 
no man could tell him how or why; but the lodge was 



Hie Nine Bays' Queen. 113 

empty, and the Princess gone. Mary had been well served ; 
for while Dudley was drawing a curtain round the bed, 
the false Arundel and the honest Throckmorton were both 
intent on letting her know that King Edward was no 
more. Sir Nicholas rode to London, told his three broth- 
ers the dread news, and took counsel with them as to 
what should be done. The four men, sitting in a dark 
room, whispering in hot words that summer night, were 
but the types of four millions of English subjects. They 
were loyal men, stout of heart, and true in faith ; men who 
feared that Mary might be led astray through her confess- 
ors and her Spanish friends ; but who chose to risk that 
evil rather than confront the perils of a civil war ; a war 
which seemed likely, if once begun, to prove longer and 
fiercer than the strife of the Red against the White Rose ; 
seeing that the Aveaker party could always count on the 
support of Spain and Rome. Their first thought was to 
do right. Mary was the true heir to her brother's crown, 
and they could not stand aloof when powerful and unscru- 
pulous men seemed bent on driving her from her father's 
realm. As Sir Nicholas put the case in his doggrel 
rhyme : — 

And though 1 liked not the religion, 

Which all her life Queen Mary had profest, 

Yet in my mind that wicked motion, 
Right heir for to displace I did detest. 

After long debate the four brothers agreed to mount 
their horses, to leave London by different roads, to spur 
with all speed for the royal lodge, to inform the Princess 
of her brother's death, and warn her to fly from Hunsdon 
before the arrival of Lord Robert's company of horse. Ar- 
undel's man confirmed the news. A night ride saved the 
Princess, who sent out letters to the shires and cities, call- 
ing out her people, and then rode swiftly through the Suf- 



114 Her 3Iajesty^s Toicer, 

folk flats towards Kenning Hall, a strong castle on the 
river Waveney, where she proclaimed herself Queen. 

Missing his prize at Himsdon, Lord Roberts was ordered 
to gallop hard upon such track as he might find ; and, to 
aid his search, Lord Warwick was sent out with a second 
company of horse. These young men had their father's 
orders how to act, and there is reason to suspect his or- 
ders would have justified them in putting Mary to death. 
Of course, she could be called a suicide, and three or four 
frightened servants might have been got to swear they had 
seen her either mix the drug or plunge the knife into her 
heart. Dudley, who already contemplated sending Bishop 
Gardiner, Edward Courtney, and the Duke of Norfolk, to 
the block, was of opinion that the throne would be all the 
more stable if it were red with blood. 

Third Day. — On Wednesday morning, while the lords 
were sitting with Queen Jane in council, news came to the 
Tower that Mary was at Kenning Hall ; that John Bou- 
chier. Earl of Bath, was with her ; that Henry Ratclifie, 
Earl of Sussex, was on his way to join her; and that sons 
of Lord Wharton, and Lord Mordaunt, with many gentle- 
men of note, were up in arms. 

Kenning Hall belonged to the Howards, whose tenants 
and followers hated Dudley and all his tribe ; partly for 
the wrongs which his party had done the Duke ; still more 
for the ruthless manner in which he had scourged their 
country in pursuit of Kett. The Queen was safer than she 
knew among these Norfolk men, who not only flocked to 
her banners the moment they were raised, but threatened 
to put every man's land under fire who should dispute her 
claim. Knights and squires kept pouring in, hot with the 
summer sun, and grey with the summer dust ; and the cur- 
few rang that" Wednesday night on what promised to be 
strife between the English commons and the English no- 



The Nine Days' Queen. 115 

bles ; squire and yeoman striking for Queen Mary, while 
duke and earl were striking for Queen Jane. 

The council sitting in the White tower now felt that 
the time had gone by for such feeble warriors as Lord War- 
wick and Lord Robert to do their work ; and the question 
rose, as to which of the great lords would go forth in arms 
against the rival queen ? If Norfolk had been free, and of 
the council, he Avould have been the man to send. Not a 
pike in East Anglia would have been raised against the 
Lord of Framlingham and Norwich, the hero ofFlodden, 
the suppressor of the Pilgrimage of Grace. But Dudley 
had kept the Duke a prisoner, and the Duke's tenantry 
were now arming in Mary's name. Some one else must 
go. The council fixed on Grey ; an unwise choice, if fight- 
ing was to come, since Grey had never yet led an army in 
the field. Jane would not consent. She begged the lords 
to make a second choice. She needed her father's coun- 
sels ; she prayed them, tears in her eyes, not to send him 
from her side. Arundel turned his serpentine eyes on 
Dudley. He was the soldier of their party ; he had fed an 
army into Norfolk ; he had quickened men's minds with a 
lively terror ; and he knew the county as a general ought 
to know his ground. These facts were urged upon him by 
the lords, who seemed to think his presence in the shire 
would be enough to drive the Princess Mary into France. 

' Well,' said the Duke, ' since you think it good, I and 
mine will go, not doubting of your fidelity to the Queen's 
majesty, whom I leave in your hands.' 

From the Council chamber in the White tower they pass- 
ed through the chapel into the Queen's apartments, where 
Jane thanked the Duke for leaving her father by her side, 
and, wishing him a speedy return, bade him good night. 

Fourth Day. — Early on Thursday morning, men, horses, 
guns, and carts began to block up the Strand in front of 



11 G Ilcr 3Iajcstifs Toioer. 

Durham House, the Duke's residence near Charing Cross. 
Dudley called for his suit of steel, and tried it on. He 
sent for cannon from the Tower, with waggons of powder 
and shot and many field-pieces. After breakfast, lie beg- 
ged the council to prepare his commission, as the Queen's 
Lieutenant, forthwith, and to send on liis instructions by 
mounted messenger to Newmarket, as soon as they could 
be drawn up. To the peers who came to Durham House 
to dine with him and see him off, he made a speech ; in 
which he told them, that he was going forth in the com- 
mon cause ; that he left the Queen in their hands ; that he 
felt no doubt of their faithfulness ; that they were all en- 
gaged in God's w^ork ; that any man who faltered in the 
cause would come to grief At this moment dinner was 
brought in, on which Dudley concluded in a few words, 
' I have not spoken to you,' he said, ' in this sort upon any 
distrust of your truth, but have put you in remembrance. 
. . . and this I pray you, wish me no worse God speed than 
ye would have yourselves.' To which one of the lords re- 
plied* * If you mistrust any of us in this matter, your grace 
is much deceived.' The Duke made answer, ' I pray God 
it be so ; let us go to dinner.' Then they sat down. 

After dinner, Dudley rode down to the Tower and took 
his leave of the Queen. As he came back from his audi- 
ence into the Council chamber, he met Lord Arundel, who 
prayed that God would be with his grace, saying he was 
sorry it was not his luck to be going into the field with 
him, as he wished no better end than to fight in his cause 
and die at his feet. A page, named Thomas Lovel, was 
with the Duke. * Farewell, gentle Thomas,' said Arundel 
to the boy, ' farewell, with all my heart.' The lords came 
down the spiral stairs, and stood upon the green for a last 
greeting of their fellows ; the Duke of Northumberland 
first, then the Marquis of Northampton, Lord Grey of Wil- 



Tke Nine, Days' Queen. 117 

ton, and many more ; after wliich final greeting they took 
boat on the wliarf, and went back to their houses in tlic 
Strand. 

Mfth Day. — On Friday morning the Duke rode proud- 
ly forth, with his first train of guns, a body of six hundred 
men, and a magnificent staff. If great names and officers 
could have given the victory to Queen Jane, she might 
have slept in peace. Besides the Lord General, Dudley 
himself, went the Lord Admiral, Edward Lord Clinton ; 
the Marquis of Northampton ; the Earls of Warwick, Hun- 
tingdon, and Westmorland ; Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord 
Ambrose Dudley, Lord Robert Dudley, with most of the 
men whose steel had been tried in actual war. But they 
were Generals without troops ; Admirals without ships ; 
Lords without following. Clinton and Huntingdon were 
enemies in disguise. As they pranced along Shoreditch, 
the Duke observed with a soldier's eye that the crowd 
which flocked to see the martial array go past, in all its 
bravery of steel and plume, looked sad and curious, and 
turning to Lord Grey, who was riding at his side, remark- 
ed, ' The people i:)ress to see us, but no man cries, " God 
speed you !" ' 

Yet Mary feared to wait their coming at Kenning Hall ; 
a place too near the capital, too far from any port ; so she 
leapt to horse, and, with a long train of riders, dashed 
across country towards Framlingham Castle, the Duke of 
Norfolk's stronghold on the Ore ; riding so hard that she 
made no less than forty miles in a single day. Once that 
day she was in peril, for in part of her road she fell foul 
of the companies led by Warwick and Lord Robert. But 
on the first shout of the onset, Jane's troops went over 
to her side, and Dudley's sons escaped becoming Mary's 
prisoners only by the fleetness of their steeds. 

Later in the day, a messenger from Bucks brought word 



118 Her 3Ia jest y^s Tower. 

to the Council in the Tower that Lord Windsor, Sir Ed- 
ward Hastings, and other gentlemen, were raising men in 
that county in Queen Mary's name. 

Sixth Day. — On Saturday a train of waggons left the 
Tower, with arms, sujiplies, and cannon for the Duke, who 
found himself in presence of a thousand troubles on which 
he had never counted. The commons gave him no helj) ; 
for no one liked him ; and as he advanced into East Anglia 
he found himself in the midst of active foes. When ho 
heard bad news from the front, he halted. Mary was now 
in Framlingham Castle, surrounded by a guard, which 
was strong in number, if not in discipline and arms. She 
had been j^roclaimed in the market-place of Norwich, 
from which city a band of gentlemen had ridden to her 
court. Worst of all, some ships which Clinton had sent 
from London to the Norfolk coast, on the pretence of ar- 
resting Mary's flight, should she try to leave the country, 
had gone over to the Queen, and supplied her with guns 
and stores. From other shires, the news was equally dark 
and fitful. Bucks and Beds were stirring; Lord De.rby 
was up in Cheshire ; and the midland counties were about 
to march. Dudley, who knew his business as a soldier, 
saw that these changes must be met ; and sending in hot 
haste to London for fresh troops, he j^ushed on for Cam- 
bridge, which he reached that night. 

Seventh Day. — The summer Sunday dawned on a country 
wasting w4th a passionate pain. In every city, the crowd 
was for Mary, while tlie higher class of thinkers and re- 
formers was for Jane. Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, 
walked down to Paul's Cross, and preached an eloquent 
sermon against the Scarlet woman ; while John Knox was 
thundering forth his prophetic Avarnings at Amersham in 
Bucks. From a thousand 2:)ulpits England was that day 
warned that a house divided as^ainst itself must fall. 



The Nine JJays' Queen. 119 

In the palace of the Tower, a cry of defection rose, but 
the garrison was too prompt in action for the evil spirit to 
get abroad. About seven o'clock, the gates were suddenly 
locked, and the keys carried up to the Queen's room. The 
guards were told that a seal was missing ; but in fact, the 
missing seal was the Lord High Treasurer. Pembroke and 
Winchester had tried to leave the Tower privately ; Pem- 
broke had been watched and taken ; but Winchester had 
got away. The first thought of every man was that he 
had carried off his money ; and some archers of the guard 
Avere sent after him to his house, with orders to arrest 
and bring him back. They seized him in his bed, and 
delivered him at the Tower wicket to Sir John Brydges, 
the Lieutenant, as the clocks were chiming twelve. 

Eighth Day. — Monday brought fresh sorrow to Queen 
Jane. Iler house was divided against itself: the Duke, her 
father, had no confidence in the Duke, her father-in-law; 
the Duchess of Northumberland was quarrelling with the 
Duchess of Suffolk ; and the foolish Guilford was going 
about whimpering that he wanted to be king. Her coun- 
cil was also divided against itself Dudley was absent ; 
Pembroke and Winchester were little more than prisoners ; 
Paget and Arundel were false ; Bedford was suspected ; 
and Cranmcr, if true to Jane, was acting as a councillor 
with the faint heart of a man who feared that he was 
doing wrong. Her country was divided, too, but in no 
equal parts. Jane was popular, yet the people were 
mainly on Mary's side; and no thunders of Ridley and 
Knox could make common folk understand that a woman 
ought to lose her civil rights because she held certain opin- 
ions about the Keys and the Bread and Wine. As yet there 
had never been a prince on the throne of hostile creed ; 
and the people had yet to read in the light of Smithfield 
fires the sad lesson of a country divided in its body and its 



120 Ilcr Mil jest if s Tower. 

head. The Commons felt for Mary, and they fancied she 
coukl do no harm. Shigle and sickly, she was not likely 
either to leave a son or even to live long. Her sister, — 
strong and beautiful as a pard, was English in blood, and 
English in thought. What the Spanish weakness of Mary 
might put crooked, the English strength of her sister 
could set straight. They would rather bear Avith Mary's 
monks for a time — a very short time — than start on a new 
contention of Lancaster and York. Wise men might fore- 
cast the future in another way; but in days of turmoil, 
wise men do not shoulder pikes and brandish broadswords ; 
and while the thinkers were weighing arguments for and 
against the two queens, a hundred thousand men, moved 
by their hot blood only, were bearing Queen Mary to her 
father's throne. 

N'inth Day. — On Tuesday morning the game Avas seen 
to be up. The Queen's Council Avere nearly of one mind. 
Cranmer and Grey Avere true ; but of the noble croAvd 
Avho elbowed them at the table, every other man Avas 
false. Most of them, Winchester, Arundel, Pembroke, Pa- 
get, Shrewsbury, had made their peace, and kept their 
places in the Council only to betray the girl Avliom they 
had forced to ascend the throne. The army Avas as rot- 
ten as the Council. When Dudley marched on Bury, his 
soldiers mutinied on the road, and forced him to fall back 
on Cambridge, Avhicli Avas already lilling Avitli Queen 
Mary's friends. In fact, Avhen he took up his quarters in 
King's College, he Avas a prisoner, though suffered to sleep 
Avithout the appearance of a guard. 

Next day, the Council left Queen Jane hi the ToAver 
alone ; Queen Mary Avas proclaimed in Cheap and in St. 
Paul's Churchyard. The nine days' reign Avas over. 

When the archers came to the Tower gates, demanding 
admission in Queen Mary's name, Grey gave up the keys, 



Dethroned. 121 



and rushed into his daughter's room. The Summer Queen 
was sitting in a chair of state, beneath a royal canopy. 
'Come down, my child,' said the miserable Duke; 'this is 
no place for you.' Jane thought so too ; and quitted her 
throne without a sigh. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

DETHRONED. 

Pembroke had been the first to salute Queen Jane : he 
was now the first to proclaim Queen Mary. Pembroke 
was a bold man, a good soldier, a rich baron, able to put 
twenty thousand pikes in the field. Dudley excepted, no 
one had higher motives for supporting Jane than Pem- 
broke ; since his eldest son, William Lord Herbert, had 
been united to Lady Catharine Grey, Jane's sister and 
heiress. But he saw how the tide was flowing ; and he 
was more concerned to save his head from the axe, than 
to enjoy the prospect of a matrimonial crown for his son. 

The Council left the Tower, the gates of which were 
now open to them, for Baynard's Castle — not the great 
hold which John had ravaged, but a palace built on the 
site by Henry the Eighth — to which they called Sir Thom- 
as White, Lord Mayor, with some of the City merchants, 
in whose presence Arundel announced that Mary was the 
true Queen and Jane a mere usurper of the Crown ; on 
which Pembroke drew his sword, and flashing the steel in 
their faces cried — ' This weapon shall make Mary Queen.' 
Sir Thomas and the citizens were hurried off" from Bay- 
nard's Castle to Cheapside, where Pembroke read the proc- 
lamation of Queen Mary, threw his cap into the air, and 
flung a handful of coins among the crowd. Paget and 

F 



122 Her Majesty'' s Tower. 

Arundel leapt to horse, and rode at night towards Fram- 
lingham Castle, were they were joyfully received by the 
Queen, who heard from them the minutest details of the 
work which they had done for her in London. Paget was 
detained by the Queen as her adviser, while Arundel set 
out for Cambridge to arrest the Duke. 

Dudley was sore in mind. He saw that his scheme had 
failed, and knew that his blood was forfeit to the law. 
When news came to him by a private hand, that Jane had 
been abandoned in the Tower, and Mary proclaimed Queen 
in Cheapside, he called for a herald, and going into the 
market-place with Northampton and Warwick, he read 
the proclamation and threw up his cap. But his loyalty 
was too late. Roger Slegge, the Mayor of Cambridge, fol- 
lowed him to King's College, and took him prisoner in 
Queen Mary's name. 

One chance of escape was thrown into his way. Late in 
the evening letters arrived in Cambridge from the Coun- 
cil that every man should go to his own place. The ob- 
ject was to get the Duke's force disbanded and dispersed. 
Dudley drew Slegge's attention to these orders. ' You do 
me wrong-,' he said, ' to withdraw my liberty. See you 
not the Council's letters, that all men should go away as 
they list ?' Slegge was puzzled, and withdrew his men. 
If Dudley had sprung to horse, and ridden off that mo- 
ment, he might have found a boat, and escaped beyond 
sea. He let the moment slip. Warwick drew on his 
boots, called for his horse, and got himself ready to ride 
away ; but the Duke hung on, as though he were hoping, 
like a desperate gambler, for some sudden change in the 
game. Late in the night, he heard that Arundel was com- 
ing to his rooms ; then his heart sank within him ; and 
going forth to meet him in the outer chamber, he knelt at 
the Earl's feet, and prayed him to be good to him for the 



Dethroned. 123 

love of God. Arundel was cold. ' Consider,' said the 
Duke, ' I have done nothing but by consent of you and the 
whole Council.' 

* My lord,' said Arundel, ' I am sent hither by the Queen, 
and in her name I arrest you.' 

* And I obey,' replied the broken Dudley ; * and I be- 
seech you, my lord of Arundel, use mercy towards me, 
knowing the case as it is.' 

* My lord,' quoth the earl, * you should have sought for 
mercy sooner \ I must do according to my commandment.' 

They were still in the outer room of his lodging in 
King's College, now filled with knights and gentlemen, to 
whom Arundel gave the Duke in charge, and then with- 
drew. For two hours, Dudley chafed and stamped about 
that room, in the midst of strange and angry men, without 
the comfort of his page and servant to attend him. When 
he wished to go into his bedroom, the guards prevented 
him. Then he looked out of his window, and, seeing Ar- 
undel go by, he called — 

* My lord, my lord of Arundel, a word with you.' 

* What would you have, my lord ?' 

* I beseech your lordship,' cried the Duke, * for the love 
of God, let me have Coxe, one of my chamber, to wait upon 
me.' 

' You shall have Tom, your boy,' said the bitter earl. 

' Alas, my lord,' whined the Duke, ' what stead can a boy 
do me ? I pray yon, let me have Coxe.' 

Arundel turned away ; but in going, he sent orders for 
Tom and Coxe to have access to their master. 

Warwick was taken in his boots, and along with Lord 
Robert Dudley, the Marquis of Northampton, Sir Thomas 
Palmer, and Sir Henry Gates, was brought to the Tower, 
of which Arundel was now made Constable. All the pris- 
on rooms being full, they had to be crowded by Sir John 



124 Her Majesty's Toioer. 

Brydges into chambers never up to that day used as pris- 
ons — such as the Garden tower, the Garden house, the 
deputy's house, and the Develin tower. The Duke was 
lodged in the Garden tower; Sir Thomas Palmer in the 
Garden house ; the Marquis of Northampton in the Deve- 
lin tower, behind St. Peter's church. Jane was in the 
house of Thomas Brydges, brother and deputy of Sir John. 

Warwick and his brother Guilford were lodged in the 
middle room of Beauchamp tower; where they began to 
carve their misery on the Avails. Lord Warwick made a 
puzzle of the family names, so subtle that no wit of man 
has yet been able to guess his secret. Two bears and a 
ragged staff, Avith his OAvn name under them, stand in a 
frame of emblems ; Roses, Acorns, Geraniums, Honeysuck- 
les; which some folk fancy from the initial letters, may 
mean Robert, Ambrose, Guilford, and Henry ; an explana- 
tion much too easy to be the true one. The rose may 
mean Ambrose ; the oak, no doubt, is Robert. A sprig 
of oak. Lord Robert's own device, appears on another side 
of the room. Guilford could not forget that his wife was 
Queen ; and solaced his captivity by carving the name of 
Jane. 

Lord Robert Avas lodged in the lower room, on the 
ground-floor, Avhile the Earl of Warwick and King Guil- 
ford, as men of higher note, were lodged in the upper 
room. During this period of separation. Lord Robert dug 
into the stone : 

ROBERT DVDLEY 

a name which may still be read near the door ; cut into 
the wall by Amy Robsart's lord. After his trial, perhaps 
after Guilford's death, he was promoted to the upper room ; 
on the wall of which he also left his mark, in the shape of 
an oak-branch with the letters 



Dethroned. 125 

R. D. 

. Jane was alone with her gentlewomen, Elizabeth Tylney 
and Mistress Ellen, in the upper room of deputy Brydges' 
house ; where she spent her days in reading the Greek 
Testament, and in grieving for her sire, whose love for her 
had brought his venerable head within reach of the fatal 
axe. Of herself she hardly thought, and of Guilford only 
as a starless boy, whose fate was married for a moment to 
her own. She had no such love for him, as she felt for her 
parents and her sisters. She had known him a few days 
only ; she had married him as an act of obedience ; she had 
never lived with him as a wife. She was little more than 
a child in years ; but in six such summer weeks as she had 
now gone through, the characters of men are ripened fast. 
We know the Dudleys ; and what was there in them for a 
girl like Jane to love ? 

Mary was now the Queen ; and her triumph was under- 
stood as the victory of Spain. Renard, the crafty agent 
of her cousin, Charles the Fifth, became her chief adviser. 
Arundel, Pembroke, Paget, were consulted by the Queen, 
but the actual power was in Renard's hands. The blood 
to be shed was poured out, not on an English, but on a 
Spanish scale. 

The Duke, the Marquis, and Lord Warwick, were brought 
to Westminister Hall for trial, where the aged Norfolk, 
white with years and sorrows, now restored in blood, and 
freed from bonds, presided as Lord High Steward, and pro- 
nounced the sentence of death on his cruel foe. Dudley, 
who could not deny that he had been in arms against 
Queen Mary, pleaded his commission under the Great Seal, 
and protested against the lords who had signed that com- 
mission judging him to death. Every one felt that he had 
made a point ; but the peers were not open to legal points \ 



126 Her Majesty'' s Tower. 

and when he had made his protest, Norfolk declared that 
he must die. 

Warwick and Northampton were also condemned to 
death. Warwick displayed a manly pride. Asked by 
Norfolk what he had to say in excuse of his treason, he 
answered that he stood by his father, that he accepted his 
doom, and had nothing to ask save that his debts might 
be paid out of his lost estates. Next day, Sir Andrew 
Dudley, the Duke's brother. Sir John Gates, Sir Thomas 
Palmer, and Sir Henry Gates, were tried. They pleaded 
guilty ; all except Palmer. ' Can you deny that you were 
there?' asked the judge. 'No,' answered Sir Thomas. 
* Then you are culpable,' returned the judge. ' If that be 
so,' said Palmer, ' I confess the same.' They were all con- 
demned. 

Monday, August 21, being named as the day on which 
the Duke must die, the guards were drawn up, the block 
was got ready, and the headsman waited with his axe. 
But the Duke made a feint, which put off the evil hour. 
He felt sore of mind on account of his change of faith ; 
he had a great desire to hear mass, as in his boyish time ; 
he begged to receive his Maker from the hands of a priest. 
Here was a change ! To gain a few hours of life, the proud 
enemy of Rome was willing to become her slave. Arundel, 
who had never ceased to be a Catholic, snajDped at the 
Duke's hint ; sent for the Tower priest, and bade him pre- 
pare the altar in St. Peter's church. He also sent into 
Cheapside for twelve or fourteen merchants — Hartop, 
Newse, Baskerville, and others — to a23pear in the Queen's 
chapel by nine o'clock. This was to be a morning of sweet 
revenge. When all was ready, and the people seated. Sir 
John Gage, the old Constable, went to the Garden tower 
for the Duke, while Sir John Brydges, the lieutenant, went 
to Develin tower for the Marquis ; and Thomas Brydges, 



Dethroned. 127 

the lieutenant's deputy, went to the Garden house for Sir 
Thomas Palmer. The Duke and Palmer had to pass under 
Lady Jane's window ; and this young girl, who saw them 
go by, between the guards, heard with pain and shame, 
that to save their lives for a few hours these heroes of 
twenty battle-fields were going to hear mass. 

When they were placed in the church, the priest began ; 
saying his office in the usual way, with Pax., and blessing, 
and elevation of the host. On the wafer being offered to 
him, the Duke turned round to the people and said : ' My 
masters, I let you all to understand that I do most faith- 
fully believe this is the right and true way.' Then he 
knelt before the priest and took the wafer into his mouth. 
Those who had been fetched to see Dudley's act of hu- 
miliation, went away from St. Peter's church saying to 
each other, ' Wist ye, friend, that it is forty-four years this 
day, since his father was put to death ?' 

Warwick, on hearing that his father had been to mass, 
sent for a priest and reconciled himself with Rome. Mary 
would probably have spared their lives ; but Renard would 
not listen to her plea of mercy. Next day, the Duke, Sir 
John Gates, and Sir Thomas Palmer, were marched to Tow- 
er hill. At the block they declared themselves good Cath- 
olics; Dudley, most of all, appealing to the Bishop of 
Winchester, Nicholas Heath, who stood by him near the 
rail. They were buried in the Tower chapel ; Dudley be- 
neath the altar, the two knights at the west end. 

Seven days after their execution, a citizen was dining 
with Thomas Brydges, in the Tower, when the Lady Jane 
chanced to come down stairs, from the upper room in which 
she lived, and seeing the good folks at table, said she would 
sit and dine with them. Her youth, her modesty, her ten- 
derness took the stranger's eye, yet not so strongly as her 
piety and steadfastness took his heart. 



128 Her Majesty's Towei\ 

' I pray you,' asked Lady Jane, ' have they mass in Lon- 
don ?' ' Yea, sooth,' he answered, ' in some places.' 

*It may be so,' sighed Jane ; * it is not so strange as the 
suddeir conversion of the late Duke. For who would have 
thought he would have so done ?' 

* Perchance, he thereby hoped to have had his pardon.' 

* Pardon !' she flashed out ; ' pardon ? "Woe worth him ! 
He hath brought me, and our stock in miserable calamity 
by his exceeding ambition. Hoped for life by his turning ! 
Though other men be of that opinion, I am not. What 
man is there living, I pray you, that would hope for life 
in that case : — being in the field against the Queen in per- 
son ? Who was judge that he should hope for pardon ?' 

These good people, fired by her holy wrath, looked at 
the girl in love and wonder. * What will you more ?' she 
cried. 'Like as his life was wicked, so was his end. I 
pray God, that neither I nor friend of mine, die so.' And 
then with kindling fervour she exclaimed : 

' Should I, who am young and in my fewers (teens) for- 
sake my faith for the love of life ? Nay, God forbid. 
Much more lie should not, whose fatal course, though he 
had lived his years, could not have long continued. But 
life is sweet. . . God be merciful to us ! He sayeth. 
Whoso denieth Him before men. He will not know him in 
His Father's Kingdom.' 

When she rose from table, she thanked Brydges and 
the stranger for their company, and then retired with her 
gentlewoman to the Upper room. 

Early in September the Tower received a new file of 
tenants ; old rivals and enemies of Cardinal Fisher ; three 
of the most eminent prelates in the English church : Thom- 
as Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury ; Nicholas Ridley, 
Bishop of London ; Hugh Latimer, once Bishop of Worces- 
ter. Latimer had been here before. On the green he met 



The Men of Kent. 129 

Rutter, one of the warders, to whom he cried, in that 
cheery voice which every one liked to hear, 'What, my 
old friend, how do you ? I am come to be your neighbour 
again.' Latimer was lodged in the Garden house, which 
the apostate Palmer had now left. Cranmer was placed 
in that Garden tower, which was supposed to have broken 
Dudley's pride. 

The kinsmen and councillors ot Lady Jane had nearly 
all conformed to the new Queen's faith. Warwick, Lord 
Ambrose, and Lord Robert, had given way. Huntingdon 
and N'orthampton heard mass daily in St. Peter's church. 
Some favour was extended to all Jane's captives ; Lady 
Warwick being allowed to see her husband in Beauchamp 
tower, and Lady Ambrose Dudley to visit her lord in the 
Nuns' bower. Ambrose had license to walk on the leads 
over Cold harbour, and Guilford the same liberty on Beau- 
champ tower. 

A priest was sent to Lady Jane, and confident hopes were 
expressed by those who knew nothing of her high nature, 
that she would follow the example of her masculine friends. 

Time and peace were wanted for such a work ; but time 
and peace were not to be found during Mary's reign. The 
experiment of converting Jane to the faith in which Dud- 
ley died, was rudely disturbed by events in Kent. 



CHAPTER XVIL 

THE MEN OF KENT. 



On the walls of Beauchamp tower, and in the crypt of 
St. John's, memorials of the Kentish men may still be found. 
In the slant of the window, looking towards the green, a 
rude carving on a kind of shield, shows the name of — 

F2 



130 Her Majesty^ s Tower. 

THOMAS COBHAM 

1555- 

This Thomas Cobham was the youngest son of George, 
Lord Cobham of Couling Castle, a descendant of Joan, 
wife of the Good Lord Cobham, and a cousin of Sir Thom- 
as Wyat, of Allingtin Castle, Captain of the men of Kent. 
It is probable that Wyat shared with Cobham the Middle 
room of Beauchamp tower ; from which Lord Robert and 
Lord Guilford Dudley were removed to the Belfry. 

The frolic known as the Kentish rising was a political, 
not a dynastic threat. Wyat, a son of Sir Thomas of the 
Songs and Sonnets, a grandson of Sir Henry of the Cat, 
and of that stout Lady Wyat who had put the Abbot of 
Bexley in the stocks — is known as Sir Thomas of the Wast- 
er; his waster* being a great cudgel, made of a brand, a 
piece of iron, and a length of thong, which the young gal- 
lant carried under his cloak, in the hope of laying it on the 
back of John Fitzwilliam, a wretch who had sent him word 
that it would be well to get rid of Queen Mary by either 
foul means or fair means. The Mercutio of the rising was 
a loyal man. 

In youth, he had been gay and fractious ; first in his fa- 
ther's house, where he lived in an atmosphere of wit and 
song ; afterwards in France, where he served, not without 
credit, in the war against Charles the Fifth. The death 
of Edward the Sixth found him living at Allingtin Castle ; 
a married man, with youngsters at his knee ; fond of his 
hawks, his horses and his dogs ; but when Mary hinted 
that she hoped to contract a Spanish marriage, the flighty 
passions of his youth rushed back into his veins. Had he 
not fought against the Spaniards at Landrecy? Was he 
to put his neck under the feet of a Spanish prince ? Never, 
cried the thoughtless spark. Talking to his neighbours by 



The Men of Kent, 131 

the yule logs, he found them no less eager than himself to 
oppose the 2:)rojected match. Between the dinner and the 
dance, they put their heads together ; and on the mor- 
row these Twelfth Night revellers were a band of plot- 
ters moving into camp ; Wyat was chosen captain ; just 
as the day before he might have been voted Lord of Mis- 
rule. 

They fancied that a scuffle and riot would serve their 
turn ; checking the plans of Renard, and forcing the Queen 
to dismiss her j)roject of a Spanish match. They meant 
no harm to Mary ; they hoped to do her good ; nay, they 
expected her to stand aside, and let the English faction 
and the Spanish faction fight it out. 

Among the first to throw in their lot with Wyat were 
Robert Rudston, Thomas Culpepper and Thomas Fane, 
gentlemen of family and estate, who were quickly follow- 
ed by Sir Harry Isely, Sir George Harper, Cuthbert 
Vaughan, and many more. Wyat strove to persuade 
George, Lord Cobham of Couling to join; but Cobham, 
though a good j^atriot, was a timid man, who allowed his 
son Thomas to ride into Wyat's camp, while he sent news 
to the council of what was being done. George was a 
Brooke, not an Oldcastle. The rioters, who soon became 
an army, rang the church-bells in every town, seized Roch- 
ester Castle, and mounted guard on the Medway Bridge. 
Norfolk was now sent down to disperse the mob ; but the 
aged warrior, pale from his cell, was no longer the man of 
Flodden and of Doncaster Bridge ; and when the levies 
which he led into Kent heard that the Kentish men were 
up in arms, not against their Queen, but only against the 
Spanish match, they deserted their general, threw down 
their flag, and shouting, 'A Wyat, a Wyat !' went over to 
his side. ' So many as will come and tarry with us shall 
be welcome,' cried the gay leader, as he rode through the 



132 Her Majesty'^ s Tower. 

deserters' ranks ; ' and as many as will depart, good leave 
have they.' A few fell back; men of the Queen's guard, 
who returned to London in wretched plight ; their bows 
broken, their scabbards empty, their coats turned inside 
out. When these scarecrows passed through the gateway 
of London Bridge, on their way back to the Tower, the 
citizens of Cheap, who thought the Queen must surely give 
way about the match, ran mad with joy. 

Renard was now alarmed ; and he wished the Queen to 
leave Loudon ; but Mary never had a moment's fear. She 
had spies in AUingtin and Rochester, in Wyat's house and 
in his camp, who reported to her council everything that 
was either done or likely to be done. Li place of yielding 
the match, Mary mounted her horse, rode into the city, 
harangued the citizens in Guildhall, declared her purpose 
to proceed, proclaimed Wyat a rebel, and bade the well- 
wishers of his cause go join him, offering them a free pas- 
sage through the gates of London Bridge into Kent. 

On the day of her proclamation, Wyat was in Dartford, 
the next day in Greenwich. The game was now close. 
Early on Candlemas day a gentleman came dashing up the 
Kent Road, accompanied by a drummer ; and being stop- 
ped by the picket near St. George's Church, he said he had 
a message for the Queen's general, the Earl of Pembroke. 
With a band round his eyes and a drummer by his side, he 
was led on foot through the city to Coldharbour, Lord Pem- 
broke's residence, where he remained in secret parley until 
the afternoon, when he was brought out again with the 
band round his eyes and the drummer by his side, and led 
back to St. George's Church. N'o one but the Queen's 
council knew his name. When he was gone from Coldhar- 
bour, Pembroke rode out, attended by Lord William How- 
ard, the Queen's stout deputy of Calais, followed by fifty 
men ; passed over London Bridge ; and went up the High 



The Men of Kent. 133 

Street, Southwark, as far as St. George's Church. Every- 
thing was quiet. They put a number of Lord William's 
men in the Tabard and other taverns much used by the 
men of Kent, and then rode back to court. 

On her side, Mary offered a pardon to such of her good 
subjects as would lay down their arms at once, with the 
four exceptions of Wy at, Rudston, Harper, andlsely, and a 
reward for any man who would take Wyat, of a hundred 
pounds a-year to himself and his heirs for ever. 

Next day rebel flags were seen from the Belfry and the 
Keep; the Kentish men marching lightly towards the 
bridge, two thousand strong, with many good pieces in 
their train. No attempt was made to stop them. The 
Queen's troops, posted near St. George's Church, fell back 
to the bridge, the chains of which were cut and the gates 
made safe. The men left by Lord William in the taverns, 
went over to the rebels, and Southwark was surrendered 
to Wyat without a blow. Sir John Brydges said they 
ought to go out from the Tower and fight ; but Pembroke, 
who knew his own business, refused to stir. 

Panic ran through the City, in which the shops were 
closed, the church-bells rung, and the gates secured against 
surprise. Pembroke sent Lord William to the bridge for 
a parley. ' Wyat, Wyat !' cried Lord William from the 
gate. * What would ye with the Captain ?' asked a Kent- 
ish man. ' I would speak with him,' quoth Lord William. 
'The Captain is not here,' said the other; 'but if ye will 
anything to him, I will show it.' ' Marry, then,' returned 
Lord William ; ' Know of him what he meaneth by this in- 
vasion, and Avhether he continue in his purpose ?' In less 
than an hour the Kentish man came back to the bridge 
with a purse in his hand, Avhich he threw over the gate, 
saying, ' There, in that ye will find the Captain's answer.' 
Wyat required on behalf of the Kentish men no less than 



134 Her Majesty^ s Tower. 

that the queen should give up her project of a Spanish 
match, and that she should yield to him the Tower as a 
pledge of her good faith. There must have been peals of 
laughter in the supper-rooms of the Tower that night. 

Mary's spirit seemed to rise as the peril pressed around 
her. She raised on the keep a flag which the diarists de- 
scribe as a banner of defiance, and gave orders that the 
morning and evening guns should be fired off as they were 
fired in times of peace on the change of guard ; nay, she 
affected a sudden tenderness for people who are seldom 
much cared for by princes in time of war. Poynings, one 
of her gunners, came to tell her he could beat down some 
houses across the river, and bury many of the rebels m the 
crash. * Nay,' said the Queen, like a queen, * that were 
great pity ; for many poor men and householders will be 
undone and killed.' Charity on her side seemed to beget 
chivalry on the other. A fanatic, named William Thomas, 
a man of good parts, whom the times had driven mad, made 
a proposal for taking off the Queen, as the simplest way to 
get rid of the Spanish match. This proposal was made 
known by John Fitzwilliam, one of Norfolk's men, not to 
Wyat, who would have pinked the rascal on the spot, but 
through third and fourth parties, by whom it came at 
length to the Captain's ears. Wyat then cut his waster, 
a thick stick, through which he burnt a hole and fastened 
a length of thong. With this waster in hand, he sought a 
whole day for the rascal who talked of laying hands on his 
Queen. Failing to find Fitzwilliam,Wyat gave the cudgel 
to a servant, and bade him seek the fellow out, saying, 
* Bob him well, for the knave is a spy, and therefore be 
bold to beat him.' 

In this lightsome and generous spii'it he acted from first 
to last. When he heard that the Queen had promised a 
hundred pounds a-year for ever to any man who shoiild 



Tim Men of Kent. 135 

take him, he wrote his name in big letters on a scroll and 
gaily stuck it in his cap. 

A flight of romantic pity led to his ruin. One of Sir 
John Brydges' men was passing down the river in his 
barge, when a waterman whom he knew, a poor fellow from 
Tower stairs, called to him from the bank to take him on 
board. Now, passage from one side of the Thames to the 
other was forbidden, and when the Kentish gunners saw 
the Tower barge taking a man on board against the agree- 
ment, they fired a volley into her, and the waterman fell 
dead. Brydges, maddened by what he thought an insult 
to his barge, opened fire from the keep, the Devil's tower, 
and the Water gate, not only against the wooden houses 
on Horsleydown, but against the steeples of St. Mary's 
Church and St. Olave's Church. The poor people whose 
sheds were rattling into pieces, ran to Wyat ; the men in 
rage, the women in tears ; and begged him to save them 
from destruction. * Sir,' they cried in terror, * we shall be 
utterly undone for your sake ; our houses, which are our 
living, will be thrown down, our children will be slain, this 
borough will be desolated ; for the love of God, take pity 
on us !' Wyat is said to have paused for a long time. 
What they asked of him was to give up all the advantages 
of his position, in order to save the Queen's subjects from 
the violence of her Lieutenant. A soldier would have 
packed them home with an oath ; a statesman would have 
sent them to the Queen. But the light-hearted . Captain 
could not stand a woman's tears. ' I pray you, my friends,' 
he said, * content yourselves a little, I will ease you of this 
mischief God forbid that ye, nay the least child here, 
should be hurt in my behalf 

Wyat had only one choice ; either to fall back on Roch- 
ester, confess his failure, and wait for some luckier mo- 
ment ; or, by a forced and fatiguing march to Kingston, 



136 Her Majestifs Tower. 

get across the Thames higher up, and march on the capital 
by the northern bank. He chose the more dashing plan. 

Paying every one his due, so that no man lost a penny 
by his bands, he marched his forces through the marshes 
of Lambeth and "Wandsworth, towards the old Saxon 
town, which he reached the same night ; to find the bridge 
broken down, the boats all moored on the Middlesex side, 
and the passage secured by two hundred of the Queen's 
troops. "\Yhat was he to do ? He could not pause ; nei- 
ther could he fall back. Southwark was occupied in his 
rear. What was in front, he could not tell ; but come 
what would he must now push forward. Two of his guns 
were trailed to the bridge, and the soldiers SAvept away. 
Three or four Medway swimmers sprang into the flood, 
swam across the stream under fire, unfastened the boats, 
and paddled them over to the Kingston bank. Into these 
frail craft a few of the Kentish men leapt — only a few, and 
these had to leave their horses and artillery behind. Yet 
Wyat could not wait. On foot, half armed, and panting 
with fatigue, some broken companies pressed on through 
that dark February night. Before day they were at Brent- 
ford — hungry, worn, and sleepless, with a royal army in 
their front. 

The Queen was in high spirits ; for these masquers who 
were falling into her nets, might be used to involve in 
treason personages whom she wished to strike and could 
not reach. 

Drums were beaten in the streets at four o'clock, and 
London was astir that winter night from Westminster to 
the Tower. A thousand preparations had been made, and 
every point of the City, from Islington ward to St. James' 
Fields, was bristling with pikes and guns. Renard urged 
the Queen to keep out of peril. The citizens were known 
to be with Wyat ; but the chief men were being watched. 



llie Men of Kent. 137 

while common folk were deceived with lies and overawed 
with force. From the Tower to Charing cross the series of 
positions were strongly manned. Lord William Howard, 
a stout soldier, was at Ludgate with his guards; Lord 
Chidiock Pawlett, son of the Lord Treasurer, held Fleet 
street and the bridge with three hundred men ; John Sir 
Gage, the Lord Chamberlain, was at Charing cross with a 
thousand pikes ; Pembroke, the Queen's general, was at 
Whitehall, under the Palace window, with his line of bat- 
tle fronting St. James's park. If these men were true, all 
would be well ; but Renard was fearful that they would 
play their Mistress false. 

Faint in limb, but high in spirit, the Kentish men pushed 
on from Brentford to Hyde Park corner. Some of their 
great pieces, which had been lugged across the river, came 
up, and, being planted on Constitution-hill, opened fire on 
Pembroke's lines. With a few brave words to his men, 
Wyat, and his cousin Cobham, pressed forward on foot 
down the old lane by St. James's Church, marched along 
the front of Pembroke's horse, who sat motionless in their 
seats, until they arrived at Charing cross. There they 
met Sir John Gage, who fired upon them and fell back. 
Wyat pushed up the Strand, his object being to reach the 
Tower. In Fleet street he met Lord Chidiock and the 
Queen's troops, who suffered him to pass. The rout went 
on, and the Lord of Misrule seemed coming into actual 
power. At Ludgate he found himself in a trap, where the 
deputy of Calais plucked from his temples the paper 
crown. 

With a loud clatter the Kentish men came up to Lud- 
gate. * A Wyat ! a Wyat !' they cried to the guards. 
Lord William stood upon the gate, and to his questions 
they replied — ' Here is Wyat, to whom the Queen hath 
granted our requests.' ' Avaunt thee, traitor,' cried Lord 



138 Her Majesty* s Tower. 

William ; * thou shalt not come in liere.' Wyat had no 
guns to force the gate. Dying with hunger and fatigue, 
he sat on a stone near the Belle Sauvage for awhile ; then, 
jumping to his feet, he marched his men back over the 
Fleet bridge, as far as Temple Bar, where the Queen's 
troops were drawn up. A fight began, which lasted a 
few minutes only ; for William Harvey, the herald, in his 
coat-of-arms, coming forward, said to Wyat — 'Sir, you 
were best to yield ; the day is gone against you. Per- 
chance the Queen will be merciful, the rather if ye stint 
the flow of blood.' Wyat turned to his men, who said 
they w^ould fight it out; but he saw that the play was 
over, and gave up his sword. Sir Maurice Berkeley took 
him up behind on his horse, and carried him to Whitehall. 
At five o'clock, Wyat was at the Tower gates a prison- 
er. Taking him through the wicket. Sir John Brydges, 
flourishing his blade in his hand, cried, ' Oh, thou villain 
and traitor, if it was not that the law must pass upon 
thee, I would stick thee through with my dagger.' The 
Captain was very quiet. 'It is no mastery now,' said 
Wyat, in scorn, and passed into his cell. He wore a coat 
of mail, with rich sleeves ; a velvet cassock, covered with 
yellow lace ; high boots and spurs ; and a velvet hat, 
adorned with very fine lace. The sword and dirk were 
gone. Cobham, Rudston, and Fane were brought into 
the Tower ; and a few days later, Thomas Culpepper, Sir 
Henry Isely, and many more, including Edward Courtney, 
the White Rose of York. 



Ccmrtney, 139 



CHAPTER XVin. 

COUETNEY. 

Edward Courtney, the White Rose of York, was born 
to a captive's fate. From the age of twelve, when he was 
first removed from his father's house to the Tower, until 
he died in Padua at the age of twenty-nine, he had only 
twenty months of freedom. 

Courtney's father, Henry, Earl of Devon and Marquis of 
Exeter, was born too near the purple for his peace ; being a 
son of Princess Catharine, daughter of Edward the Fourth. 
These Courtneys had been a splendid race ; robbers, cru- 
saders, paladins ; bearing the arms of Boulogne, and trac- 
ing their lineage to the blood royal of France. Some 
members of this great house had been Counts of Edessa, 
Kings of Jerusalem, Emperors of the East. One had mar- 
ried into the house of Capet, another into that of Plantag- 
enet ; but the Courtneys had never yet made a royal and 
imperial match without down bringing the skies upon their 
house. They dated their decline in France from the day 
when they gave one of their daughters to a son of Louis 
the Fat. Peter of Courtney's union with Yolande of Con- 
stantinople, though it brought the purple to three princes 
of the house, put an end to their greatness in the East. 
When William Courtney, eighteenth Earl of Devon, took 
the Princess Catharine to wife, he provided for all who 
were to follow him a dark inheritance — the Tower, the 
headsman's axe, and the poisoned bowl. William had 
passed seven years of his married life a prisoner in the 
Tower. Henry, Princess Catharine's son, had been execu- 



^^il^ 



140 Her Majesty'' s Toioer. 

ted, along with his cousin, Lord Montagu, for his share in 
the plot of Cardinal Pole. Edward, his boy, then twelve 
years old, was left a prisoner in the Tower. 

When the great party of York, which had been stunned, 
but not killed, at Bosworth, began to raise its head once 
more, it had found in Henry Courtney, Earl of Devon, 
Marquis of Exeter, grandson of Edward the Fourth, young, 
dashing, handsome, one of those men who cannot help be- 
ing made a rallying sign. Exeter was a Catholic, a friend 
of Reo-inald Pole. In secret he was called the White 
Rose of York ; nay, it is probable — as Henry the Eighth 
alleged — that he had dreamt of one day wearing a royal 
crown. Indeed, his claims were strong ; for he stood next 
in order of succession to the King and his sisters; and thus 
he had come to be regarded as a natural chief by all those 
partizans of the ancient church who could not travel so 
fast and far as the new primate and the new queen. These 
partizans were neither few in number nor obscure in rank. 
A majority of the people Avere unlettered peasants, and a 
majority of the great barons were known to be on the 
Catholic side. The burghers and scholars, with a majority 
of the freeholders, were on the Reformers' side. In any 
trial by battle, the issue of a conflict between the two 
opinions might have been doubtful, and the presence of 
such chiefs as Henry Courtney and Reginald Pole had 
made a resort to arms seem easy, and almost lawful m the 
eyes of turbulent men. 

Such a kinsman could only be left in peace, by such a 
king as Henry the Eighth, on one engagement, and that 
engagement Exeter either would not or could not take. 
He must have kept aloof from public aflairs. But, far from 
hiding his light in his own house, Exeter had assumed in 
London the bearing of a prince, while in his own counties 
of Devon and Cornwall he had set himself high above the 



Courtney. 141 

law. Henry grew angry, not without cause ; and on the 
eve of a movement which threatened to become a general 
rising in the west, Exeter and his son Edward, a boy of 
twelve, had been seized and thrown into the Tower; 
whence a short trial and a shorter shrift had conducted 
the hickless son of Princess Catharine to the block. 

The boy was spared. Shorn of his honors and estates, 
Courtney underwent the fate which, in those rude times, 
was known as being forgotten in the Tower. 

For fifteen years the grandson of Princess Catharine re- 
mained a captive. While he was still a boy, he ran about 
the garden and the Lieutenant's house. As he grew in 
years, in beauty, and intelligence, his high blood was put 
into the scale against him ; his freedom was abridged ; and 
the pale pretender to the name of White Rose was lodged 
for safety in the strong room of the Belfry; where his chief 
amusement was to watch the gunners fire their pieces, to 
count the ships going up and down the Thames, to pace 
the stones on Prisoners' Walk. 

He was treated as a man of no high mark ; having only 
a common servant at 6s. a week to wait on him; being 
dieted and lodged at 265. M. a week ; while young men of 
his quality, such as Guilford and Ambrose Dudley, were 
dieted at 535. 4d a week, and allowed two servants each. 

Not until the two reforming kings, Henry and Edward, 
had passed away, and his Catholic kinswoman. Princess 
Mary, succeeded to the throne, was Courtney freed from 
his confinement in the strong room. 

The twenty months of freedom which he was now to en- 
joy were months of very high favour and very warm hope. 
It seemed likely that the child on whose early life fortune 
had shed her darkest clouds would be called to wear a 
matrimonial crown. 

On the new Queen riding down to the Tower, in front of 



142 Her Majesty's Tower, 

a proud cavalcade of nobles and prelates, she found at the 
postern of her citadel a row of kneeling figures. Halting 
the procession, she got down from her palfrey, and clasped 
them in her arms. For among these kneeling figures who 
had been sufiered to come forth from their cells, many- 
were dear to her heart and servants to her cause ; the aged 
Duke of Norfolk, the Primate Gardiner, the Duchess of 
Somerset, the young Lord Courtney. Mary stooped to 
these applicants for her grace, and kissed them one by one. 
* These are my prisoners,' she exclaimed, as she carried 
them from the outer gates into the royal gallery. The 
scene was a stage device ; but the effect on the popular 
mind was great. Courtney, for example, had been free for 
three months ; yet he had come down to the gates that 
day, to receive the royal kiss, and to play his part in a 
striking act. 

A very wild dream now filled the young man's soul with 
hope. He was popular in the city and in the court, not 
only on account of his royal blood and his personal beauty, 
but more on account of the tenderness felt for a youth who 
had done no wrong, and sufiered much pain. The world 
had been very hard to him ; and a generous people wished 
to make amends for the bitterness of his early life. Pale 
with long vigils, his beauty had that soft and melancholy 
cast which takes captive the eyes of women. When he 
came out of the Belfry, at the age of twenty-six, he found 
himself high in favour. He was, in fact, the man whom 
nearly all true lovers of their country wished to see mar- 
ried to their Queen. 

Mary herself, though she was nearly old enough to have 
been his mother, was not blind to her cousin's claims, and 
she more than once thought seriously of the proposal ere 
she fixed her mind for good and evil on the Prince of Spain. 
During her day of doubt she poured favours enough on 



Courtney. 143 

Courtney to turn his head. She made him Earl of Devon, 
Parliament restored the Marquisate of Exeter to his house, 
and in dress, habit, and hospitality, he was encouraged to 
adopt a style beyond that of a private person. He gave 
himself the airs of a prince. He smiled on the Yorkist 
barons, and allowed his flatterers to call him the true 
White Rose. Even after Mary had engaged herself to 
Philip, he fancied the foreign project of alliance would pass 
away, and that the Queen would accept no husband but 
himself To the amusement of men knowing better, he 
talked of his approaching nuptials, and ordered a magnifi- 
cent suit of bridal clothes. 

His fortunes fell when Mary got a promise from Renard 
that she should wed the Spanish Prince. She was asked 
by Renard to make many sacrifices ; one of which was the 
pale and foolish youth who had lived so many years in the 
Belfry. Mary, left to herself, would have done the boy no 
harm ; but Renard told her that when Courtney ceased to 
be her lover, he could not help becoming her rival. He 
stood too near. At first, the Queen could see no peril to 
her throne in the pretensions of such a youth ; but Renard, 
who knew better than Mary what men were saying in the 
Cheapside taverns and St. Paul's Churchyard, began to 
whisper in her ear that after her marriage with Philip the 
young Lord Courtney would be a dangerous man, if not on 
his own account, yet on account of her sister, for whom 
there was a powerful party in her realm. He spoke the 
truth. So soon as Mary's contract with the Piince of 
Spain was made known in London, people began to busy 
their minds about a second union. They married Court- 
ney to Elizabeth. Mary, they said, would have no son; 
at thirty-nine she was too old; the crown must come to 
her younger sister; and since Courtney was set up by 
many as the White Rose, it would be well to end all feuds 



144 Her Majesty's Tov^er. 

and heal all sores between White and Red by weddmg the 
Lancastrian princess to the Yorkist peer. 

All this tattle was repeated day by day to the Queen. 
Mary felt that her people were avenging her Spanish 
match, by proposing to themselves an English match. It 
was hardly necessary for Renard to hint that a marriage 
of Elizabeth and Courtney would be dangerous to her 
throne. Yet he urged it in her ear from day to day. 
Nothing, he told Mary, could make her mistress of her 
kingdom, and secure to her the lover she had chosen, but 
the ruin of these two pretenders to her crown and state. 

Unlike her Spanish councillor, Mary had touches of hu- 
man pity. If she feared to act against her sister, then a 
young girl of twenty, bright with her first beauty, witty 
and debonair, she still more disliked to crush with her 
strong hand the poor boy whom she had loved and kissed. 
The youth soon helped her to decide. Fancying himself 
neglected by the Queen, he fell into bad ways ; carousing 
in City taverns, keeping loose company, running after 
strange faces, hanging on the skirts of men known to be 
engaged in plots. The austere lady grew angry and 
ashamed. Courtney repented, and was half forgiven. It 
is not clear, whether, in some of his pranks, he was not act- 
ing a part. Some think he became one of Renard's spies. 
When Wyat marched on Charing Cross, his conduct was 
suspicious, if it were nothing worse ; and his arrest, along 
with the crowd of rioters, may have been a blind on Re- 
nard's part to conceal the deeper infamy of his course. 



No Cross J N'o Crown. 145 



CHAPTER XIX. 

NO CROSS, NO CEOWN. 

On the day of her triumph, as she sat brooding in her 
closet, listening fitfully to Renard, Mary consented to give 
up her cousin, if not her sister, to the minister of Charles 
the Fifth. Jane had been sentenced by the court and re- 
prieved by time. Seven months had passed since her nine 
days' reign was over ; the author of her oifence had paid 
the penalties of his crime ; and in the recent stir no man 
had even breathed her name. Her youth, her innocence, her 
beauty, had won all hearts to her; even those of Father 
Feckenham the Queen's confessor, and Sir John Brydges 
the Queen's lieutenant. But Renard called for blood; 
and Mary was little more than a scribe in Renard's hands. 

That day, on the eve of which Queen Mary sat in her 
closet with her Spanish councillor, was Ash Wednesday ; 
and Mary, on consenting that her cousin should not live 
forty hours longer, called to her presence Father Fecken- 
ham, whom she had just made Dean of St. Paul's and Ab- 
bot of Westminster; and bade him go to the deputy's 
house in the Tower, with news that Lady Jane must die, 
and see what could be done to save her soul. Father Feck- 
enham, though a coarse man, was not a bad man. As a 
divine, he was learned and ingenious ; one in whose power 
of dealing with backsliders the Queen had a boundless 
faith. That he failed with Lady Jane, that he got angry 
with her, that his speeches to her made him hateful in the 
eyes of men, were more his misfortunes than they were 
his faults. A good deal must be allowed to a man who 

G 



140 JBer 3£ajcsti/'s Toirtr. 

honestly thinks ho has power to bmd and to loose, in his 
dealing with those who in his opinion are trifling with the 
late of immortal souls. 

Feekenham, who brought down his message of death to 
the Tower, was startled to see that girl receive his news 
with a sad and welcome smile. It seemed to him out of 
nature, almost out of grace. He spoke to her of her soul; 
of the sins of men ; of the need for repentance ; but he found 
her calm and happy, at peace with the world, and at one 
with God. He talked to her first of faith, of liberty, of 
holiness ; then of the sacraments, the Scriptures, and the 
universal Church. She knew all these things better than 
himself; and she held a language about them far beyond 
his reach. With a sweet patience, she put an end to the 
debate by saying that since she had only a few hours now 
to live she needed them all for prayer. 

The Dean was moved, as men of his order are seldom 
moved. Convert this girl in a day ! '\\"orn as he was in 
church aftairs, he knew that no skill of his would be able 
in one winter day, to avail him against one who combined 
a scholars learning with a woman's wit. If her soul was 
to be saved — and the Father was anxious to save her soul 
— that order for her execution on Friday morning must be 
stayed. With the sweet voice pulsing in his ear, he row- 
ed back to "SMiitehall, and told the vindictive Queen, with 
the bold energy of a priest, that her orders for that execu- 
tion on Friday must be withdrawn. With much ado, the 
Queen gave way ; but she feared the anger of Feekenham 
even more than that of Renard ; and the puzzled Father 
went back to the Tower, to resume his task. Jane was 
kind but cold. She had no use for him and his precepts 
in her final hour on earth. His going to court about her 
sentence gave her pain. She did not want to die ; at sev- 
enteen no one wants to die ; but she did not like the Queen 



No Cross^JVo Croicn. 147 

to add one day to her life, under the hope that she would 
act as Dudley and Warwick had done, in giving up their 
faith. That was a sacrifice she could never make. When 
Feckenham told her the warrants for Friday were recall- 
ed, she merely said she was willing to die, if the Queen, 
her cousin, was minded to put the law in force against her. 
For the rest, she only wanted to be left alone. 

' You are not to die to-morrow,' he persisted. 

' You are much deceived,' said Jane, ' if you think I have 
any desire of longer life.' 

When Feckenham returned to the Queen with a report 
of his second interview, Mary became wild with rage. She 
bade her secretaries draw up warrants for her death. She 
sent for Grey, who was a prisoner in the country. There 
were ways of adding bitterness to death, and Mary studied 
and employed them all. She could separate the husband 
from his wife in their last hours on earth ; she could march 
Guilford under Lady Jane's window, as he went by to ex- 
ecution ; she could drive the cart with his dead body past 
her door ; she could prepare a scaffold on the open green, 
mider Lady Jane's eyes; she could bring up Grey to see 
his daughter slain ; she could refuse to let her have a min- 
ister of her own faith to pray with her ; she could send her 
Jesuits and confessors to disturb the solemnity of her final 
night on earth. All these things she could do, and she 
did ; and all these things must have been of Mary's will. 

Renard required that Jane should be j)ut away; that 
sacrifice was wanting to confirm the conquest made by 
Spain ; but Renard could have no motive for adding to the 
bitterness of her death. 

The priests sent down by Mary to the Tower were Lady 
Jane's worst tormentors. They would not be denied ; they 
pushed past her women ; and when they got into her cham- 
ber, they would not go away. 



148 Her Majesty's Tower. 

The long reports which have been printed of their con- 
tention with her, may not be exact ; but they have that 
rough kind of likeness to the truth which a common ru- 
mour bears to actual fact. When Feckenham was tired 
out with argument, he is said to have exclaimed, * Mad- 
am, I am sorry for you ; I am assured we shall not meet 
again.' To which Jane is said to have answered, 'It is 
most true, sir ; we shall never meet again, unless God 
should turn your heart ;' not a word of which * happy re- 
tort,' we may be sure, ever passed the lips of Lady Jane. 

The tussle on the Bread and Wine was no doubt sharp, 
for that was the dogma most in dispute. ' Do you deny 
that Christ is present in the bread and wine ?' ' The broken 
bread,' said Jane, ' reminds me of the Saviour broken for 
my sins, the wine reminds me of the blood shed on the 
cross.' She meant to say that Christ was ministerially, 
but not bodily, present in the bread and wine. ' But did 
He not say,' put in the Father, ' Take, eat, this is my body ?' 
* Yes,' she answered, 'just as He said, I am the vine.' It 
was a figure, not a fact. 

Feckenham at length retired, and Jane withdrew into 
the upper chamber, to compose her mind ; to write a fare- 
well to her father, and to wait on God in prayer. 

She was not aware that her father had been arrested, 
still less that he was on his way to the Tower. The tender 
note which she addressed to him ended in these words : 

' Thus, good father, I have opened unto you the state 
wherein I stand : my death at hand ; to you, perhaps, it 
may seem Avoeful ; yet to me there is nothing can be more 
welcome than from this rule of misery to aspire to that 
heavenly throne with Christ my Saviour, in whose stead- 
fast faith (if it may be lawful for the daughter so to write 
to the father) the Lord continue to keep you, so at the last 
we may meet in heaven.' 



N'o Cross ^ JVb Crow7i. 149 



When it was known in the Tower that warrants were 
out, and that Jane would die on Monday morning, every- 
one became eager to get some token from her, to catch a 
last word from her lips, a final glance from her eye. To 
Thomas Brydges, the deputy, in whose house she had lived 
nearly eight months, she gave a small book of devotions, 
bound in vellum, containing two scraps of her writing, and 
a few words by Lord Guilford ; one of her notes being ad- 
dressed to Brydges himself, in words which must have 
gone to his soul : * Call upon God to incline your heart to 
his laws, to quicken you in his way, and not to take the 
word of truth utterly out of your mouth.' 

On Sunday, Guilford sent to ask her for a final interview ; 
but this sad parting she declined, as useless now, fit for 
stage heroes only, which they were not. She bade him be 
of good cheer ; and seeing how weak he had been, it is only 
right to say that the poor boy took his fate quietly, like a 
man. Sunday morning she spent in prayer and reading ; 
her book, a copy of the Greek Testament ; in which she 
observed a blank leaf at the end, and taking up her pen, 
wrote some last words to her darling sister. Lady Catha- 
rine Grey, sad heiress of all her rights and miseries : 

' I have sent you, good sister Kate, a book of which, al- 
though it be not outwardly rimmed with gold, yet inward- 
ly it is more worth than precious stones. It is the book, 
dear sister, of the law of the Lord ; his testament and last 
will, which He bequeathed to us wretches, which shall lead 
you to eternal joy.' 

Closing the sacred book, she gave it to Elizabeth Tylney, 
her gentlewoman, praying her to carry it after she was 
dead to Lady Catharine, as the last and best token of love. 
She then composed herself to prayer. 

Early next day, before it was yet light, the carpenters 
were heard beneath her window, fitting up the block on 



150 Her Majesty's Tower. 

which she was to die. When she looked out upon the 
green, she saw the archers and lancers drawn up, and Guil- 
ford being led away from the Lieutenant's door. She now 
sat down and waited for her summons to depart. An hour 
went slowly by ; and then her quick ear caught the rumble 
of a cart on the stones. She knew that this cart contained 
poor Guilford's body, and she rose to greet the corse as it 
passed by. Her women, who were all in tears, endeavoured 
to prevent her going to the window, from which she could 
not help seeing the block and headsman waiting for her 
turn ; but she gently forced them aside, looked out on the 
cart, and made the dead youth her last adieu. 

Brydges and Feckenham now came for her. Her two 
gentlewomen could hardly walk for weeping; but Lady 
Jane, who was dressed in a black gown, came forth, with 
a prayer-book in her hand, a heavenly smile on her face, a 
tender light in her grey eyes. She walked modestly across 
the green, passed through the files of troopers, mounted 
the scaffold, and then turning to the crowd of spectators, 
softly said : — 

* Good people, I am come hither to die. The fact against 
the Queen's highness was unlawful ; but touching the pro- 
curement and desire thereof by me, or on my behalf, I wash 
my hands thereof, in innocency, before God, and in the 
face of you, good Christian people, this day.' 

She paused, as if to put away from her the world, with 
which she had now done for ever. Then she added : — 

' I pray you all, good Christian people, to bear me wit- 
ness that I die a true Christian woman, and that I look to 
be saved by no other means than the mercy of God, in the 
merits of the blood of His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. 
And now, good people, while I am alive, I pray you to as- 
sist me with your prayers.' Kneeling down, she said to 
Feckenham, the only divine whom Mary would allow to 



Cranmer^ Latimer^ Ridley. 151 

come near her, ' Shall I say this psalm ?' The Abbot fal- 
tered, ' Yes.' On which she repeated, in a clear voice, the 
noble psalm ; ' Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy 
great goodness : according to the multitude of Thy mercies 
do away mine offences.' 

When she had come to the last line, she stood up on her 
feet, and took off her gloves and kerchief, which she gave 
to Elizabeth Tylney. The Book of Psalms she gave to 
Thomas Brydges, the Lieutenant's deputy. Then, she un- 
tied her gown, and took off her bridal gear. The heads- 
man offered to assist her; but she put his hands gently 
aside, and drew a white kerchief round her eyes. The veil- 
ed figure of the executioner sank at her feet, and begged 
her forgiveness for what he had now to do. She whispered 
in his ear a few soft words of pity and pardon ; and then 
said to him openly, 'I pray you despatch me quickly.' 
Kneeling before the block, she felt for it blindly with her 
open fingers. One who stood by her touched and guided 
her hand to the place which it sought ; when she laid down 
her noble head, and saying, * Lord, into Thy hands I com- 
mend my spirit,' passed, with the prayer on her lips, into 
her everlasting rest. 



CHAPTER XX. 

CRAiq^IER, LATIMEK, EIDLEY. 

The fact of Cranmer having been lodged m the Gate 
house, once known as the Garden tower, now as the Bloody 
tower, has not been noted by the thousand and one histo- 
rians of his age. It was recorded at the time by a resident 
in the Tower whose diary is still extant ; and the fact now 
tardily recovered from the waste of time, may throw some 



152 Her Majesty'' s Tower. 

light on a story which is confessed to be one of the puz- 
zling pages in a great man's life. 

From the day of his arrest, Cranmer appeared in a new 
part. He had never been deemed a coward. Even those 
who loved him least had given him credit for the virtues 
and the passions of a genuine man. As a student and a 
priest, he had been daring and original in a high degree. 
He had thought for himself. He had thwarted and op- 
posed his clerical superiors. He had been bold enough to 
marry, not once, but twice. When every one else hung 
back in doubt as to the best way of dealing with the great 
divorce, his learning gave the clue, and his spirit supplied 
the force, by which Henry was delivered from his matri- 
monial chains. Since that time he had passed through a 
thousand of those trials which are said to temper and steel 
men's minds. He had sent brave knights to the block. 
He had knelt by the feet of dying queens. He had watch- 
ed the flames lick up the flesh of martyred saints. IN'oth- 
ing in his course of life led any one to suspect that he 
feared to die. Up to the very hour of his arrest in coun- 
cil, his conduct had been stout ; for, knowing how Queen 
JVIary loathed him, he did not falter ; and hearmg of her 
march on London he did not fly. What hindered him 
from passing into France ? To the friends who urged his 
flight, he proudly said, It was fit that he should stay, con- 
sidering the post he held, and show that he was not afraid 
to own the changes which had been made in the late 
King's time. 

Yet, from the day when he was seized and clapped in the 
Garden tower, his stomach began to fail. Brave old Lati- 
mer lay in the adjoining Garden house ; and in a room 
which he could see from his window, dwelt the young and 
innocent Lady Jane. But the soul which animated Lati- 
mer and Lady Jane appears to have been scared out of 



Cranmer^ Latimer, Ridley. 153 

Cranmer in that hour of need. No doubt the hardships 
of his cell were great ; for the winter months were cold ; 
and though he dined with the Lieutenant, he was proba- 
bly kept without a fire. Cranmer could not treat his situa- 
tion as a theme for jokes. How could he tell whether 
some new Forrest might not break upon his sleep ? He 
heard that the Queen was thirsting for his blood ; he knew 
that Renard, a minister to whom the assassin's knife was 
a familiar thought, was at her side. Yet seeing that the 
primate felt no hope, it would have been manlier in him to 
affect no fear. The Queen, knowing how much he had 
been her enemy and her mother's enemy, was in no mood 
to forget her wrongs. Indeed, those wrongs were not of a 
kind which lonely and unhappy women like Mary can for- 
give ; since they touched the honour of her birth, and the 
purity of her mother's name. With the dark blood, and 
the brooding passions of her mother's race, Mary had the 
strength to bear, but not the virtue to forbear. Nor, in 
such a case as hers, could a woman be expected to see the 
merit of an act of grace. Not only had this man's crafty 
brain suggested the scheme by which Catharine could be 
put away, but his audacious tongue had summoned that 
royal lady to his court, and on her failure to obey had 
given his judgment of divorce against her ; branding her 
child, now queen, as a bastard ; telling her, as a man of 
God, that while she had been calling herself Henry's wife, 
she had been actually wallowing in mortal sin. Could 
such an offender be forgiven ? Mary told her Spanish ad- 
viser that until Cranmer was in the Tower she had never 
known one joyful day. 

In the middle of September he was lodged in the Bloody 
tower. "Winter was coming on ; and his health began to 
droop. In November, he was suffered to leave his cell 
and walk in the garden below, under Latimer's window. 

G2 



154 Her Majesty^ s Tower. 

The winter was so cold, that Latimer sent his servant to 
tell the Lieutenant, with pathetic humour, that unless he 
took more care he would give him the slip. When Sir 
John Brydges, fearing lest the prelate meant to escape, 
ran from his pleasant fireside to the Garden house, the 
good old man assured him there was no cause for fear. 
' They mean,' he said, ' to burn me ; now unless you give 
me some wood in my chamber I shall die of cold.' 

On the arrest of Wyat and the Kentish men, the Lon- 
don prisons were so choked with inmates that many of the 
city churches had to be used as jails. One church re- 
ceived four hundred captives. The Tower, especially, 
overflowed. Little Ease was crammed, and many of the 
Kentish gentlemen were thrust into the crypt. Some 
clergymen were sent to Newgate, some to the Fleet. 
Among other changes of cells and prisoners, Ridley and 
Latimer were put into Cranmer's room in the Garden 
tower; an opportunity of which they had never dreamt, 
and of which they made the highest use. Thrown to- 
gether in the Garden tower, they kept up each other's 
spirits, by holding conferences on faith and works, which 
their friends found means to copy down and print. At 
Sir John Brydges' table, to which they walked by way of 
the wall terrace, afterwards known as Raleigh's walk, they 
met the Queen's confessor, Feckenham, who talked to them 
of the bread and wine, as he liad done with Lady Jane, and 
strove to entrap them by his crafty words. Above all, 
they searched the Scriptures in their lonely rooms ; but in- 
stead of finding in Holy Writ the evidence in proof of a 
bodily presence in the bread and wine, they satisfied their 
souls that mass could never be offered as a sacrifice for 
sin. 

Yet Mary's end was gained, in some degree. The cold 
and misery of the Bloody tower broke Cranmer's spirit, as 



White looses. 155 

it had helped in some degree to break Dudley's spirit ; so 
that the priest who, in Lambeth, had been little less than 
a hero, became, when he was removed to Oxford, little bet- 
ter than a craven. Mary felt that in Cranmer she could 
humiliate the Reformation. And she was right. The high 
deeds of many years have not sufficed to cover the weak- 
ness of a day, when the chosen champion of religious free- 
dom set his seal to a recantation and denial of the most 
cherished sentiments of his life. 

The only excuse that can be made for Cranmer is, that 
his flesh was frail, that he was greatly tried, that his denial 
was drawn from him, as it were, on the rack. When he 
found the Queen obdurate, he withdrew his denial, and met 
his death like a martyr. Peace to his soul ! 

Latimer and Ridley also passed through fire to their Fa- 
ther's house. 



CHAPTER XXL 

WHITE EOSES, 

On the removal of Cranmer to Oxford the Garden tower 
received Edward Courtney, the hapless White Rose of 
York. 

' You here again, my lord ?' said Brydges, as the boat 
pushed in. * How is this ?' 

' Truly I cannot tell, unless I should accuse myself; let 
the world judge.' 

He was placed at once in the Garden tower, to see 
whether any fact would turn up against him in the Wyat 
trials. His peril lay in his royal blood ; his ofi^ence was in 
Renard's fear; an ofience which, only a few days later, 
brought Elizabeth herself to the Strong Room. Renard 



156 Her Majesty's Tmoer. 

insisted on these arrests being made ; arrests, he said, which 
were essential to Mary's peace ; arrests, he knew, which 
were essential to the policy then pursued by Spain. 

In the dull seclusion of the Tower, Sir Thomas Wyat 
had become another man to what he had been at Rochester 
and Southwark. Gardiner, who had become, next after 
Renard, the Queen's chief councillor, spoke of him with 
scorn, as ' little Wyat, a bastard of no substance.' On his 
trial, Wyat hinted that there were higher traitors than 
himself; and his words were enough to justify Renard in 
urging the arrest of Elizabeth. Wyat said he had sent a 
letter to the Princess Elizabeth, praying her to get as far 
from London as she could ; and that the Princess had sent 
him thanks for his good will, saying she would act as she 
found cause. He said he had been in correspondence with 
Lord Courtney, who had told him to proceed in his course. 
Lie said he was called the Captain, but that four or five 
others ranked above him in the camp. 

Who were these others ? ' Elizabeth first, and Courtney 
next,' said Renard. Both were sent to the Tower, in the 
hope that matter could be drawn from the ' little bastard ' 
which might warrant a jealous Queen in taking both their 
lives. 

For the moment every one turned to Wyat. Sir John 
Brydges, the Lieutenant, worked upon his love of life and 
his fear of death; and, sad to say, the dashing young 
knight, who had once stuck the scroll in his cap, to tempt 
an assassin's blow, now listened to the Lieutenant's words. 
Under skilful treatment, he seemed willing to become a 
tool. He hinted at grave matters. He affected much 
knowledge. When the council met in the Lieutenant's 
house, he was brought before them, as one having high se- 
crets in his keeping, which her Majesty ought to know. 
Before this council he made a charge against Courtney, 



White Hoses. 157 

and raised a suspicion against Elizabeth, which threw these 
personages into Renard's power. 

The Queen was so much pleased with Brydges, that she 
sent him a baron's patent ; calling him to the House of 
Lords as Baron Chandos of Sudeley Castle, the residence 
of Queen Catharine Parr. 

But his work was not yet done. To strike at Elizabeth, 
as Renard meant to strike, was one of those acts of policy 
which could only be dared on the strongest grounds. But 
the accusation of a dying man, a partner in the crime, who 
has ceased to be swayed by hope of life and fear of death, 
is verj/ strong ground. Chandos had persuaded Wyat to 
make a charge in private ; he had now to persuade him to 
repeat that charge in public ; and in presence of the man 
whom his words would involve in guilt. The second part 
of his work was not so easy as the first. "Wyat had hinted 
secrets in order to save his life ; but we now began to fear 
that he had made this sacrifice in vain. In truth, his death 
was necessary to Renard's method of proceeding ; since the 
evidence wanted against Courtney and Elizabeth was that 
of a dying and impartial man. Yet Chandos thought he 
had gained his point ; and on the morning fixed for Wyat's 
execution, he arranged in the Garden tower a most strik- 
ing scene. 

On his way to Tower Hill for execution, Wyat was 
halted at the door of the Garden tower, in which Courtney 
lay, and conducted by Lord Chandos into the upper room, 
which he found full of great people ; lords of her Majesty's 
council ; Sir John Lyon, Lord Mayor, with David Wood- 
rufie and William Chester, Sheriffs ; Gentlemen of the 
Guard, oflicers and wardens of the Tower ; all eager for 
the few words which he had been taught to pronounce, 
and on which the lives of Courtney and Elizabeth might 
be said to hang. To the chagrin of Lord Chandos, to the 



158 Her Majesty* s Tower. 

joy of Sir John Lyon and the Sheriffs, Wyat declared that 
he had nothing more to say. When he was placed before 
Courtney, in the midst of frowning councillors and kneel- 
ing sheriffs, he proudly called for the death procession to 
move on, as he had nothing to allege against either Court- 
ney or Elizabeth. 

Later in the day, two reports were made by spectators 
of what had taken place in the Garden tower. Chandos 
told the House of Lords that "Wyat had implored Lord 
Courtney to tell the truth ; and he told his story to the 
peers in such a way as to suggest that if Courtney had con- 
fessed the truth he would have confessed his guilt. The 
Sheriffs of London told the citizens that Wyat had begged 
Lord Courtney's pardon for having in his first and false 
confession brought the names of Courtney and Elizabeth 
together in connexion with his plot.* 

The death procession then moved on. A few minutes 
later, when the axe was gleaming near his eyes, the rebel 
told a crowd of people who had come to see him die, that 
he had never accused either the Princess or the Marquis 
of a guilty knowledge of his plot ; that he could not truly 
make that charge, since they had known nothing of his af- 
fairs until the rising in Kent had taken place. * You said 
not so before the council,' cried a priest who stood beside 
him. ' That which I then said, I said ; that which I now 
say is true,' replied the rebel. In a moment more his head 
was in the dust. 

No proceeding could be based on such a confession 
against the Queen's sister and heiress ; but Renard could 
not think of letting Courtney escape his toils. Courtney 
was the White Rose ; the White Rose was an English 
flower ; and the Pomegranate was the only rose for which 
Renard cared. Though Courtney could not be put on 
trial, he was carried to Fotheringay Castle, where he was 



White Bases. 159 

kept in durance until the marriage of Philip and Mary had 
taken place, when he was put on board ship, and sent 
abroad. He wandered about Europe, in what was under- 
stood as honourable exile, for a couple of years, and then 
died suddenly at Padua (not without hints of poison), in 
his twenty-ninth year. He was buried in the splendid 
church of Sant Antonio, and his ashes were covered with 
a sumptuous tomb. 

Elizabeth is said to have looked with a favouring eye 
on Courtney ; but his early death, before she came to her 
own, put an end to all chance of his ever being called upon 
to wear a king consort's crown. 

Dying a bachelor, Courtney's titles of earl and marquis 
appeared to be gone for ever ; but in an old country like 
England family titles have a charmed life. Ten genera- 
tions after the pale young Earl of Devon and Marquis of 
Exeter died at Padua, a discovery was made which led to 
a revival of the earldom of Devon in the same old line. 
The patent granted to Edward Courtney on his release 
from the Tower by Queen Mary, was worded in a peculiar 
way ; perhaps by an error of the copying clerk ; for the 
Earldom of Devon was given to him and to his ' male 
heirs ' for ever ; the usual words * of his body ' being omit- 
ted from the grant. On the ground of his being one of 
Edward Courtney's ' male heirs,' the Viscount Courtney 
of our own day laid a claim before the House of Peers for 
the earldom of Devon, and having made out his descent 
from Hugh, the second earl, a remote ancestor of the youth 
who lived in the Tower and died in Padua, that House re- 
solved that he had established his right and must take his 
seat as Earl. 

On Edward Courtney's death, the honours and perils 
of the White Rose fell upon E(Jmund and Arthur De la 
Pole, the luckless descendants of George, Duke of Clar- 



160 Her Majesty's Tower. 

ence ; and Beauchamp tower, the prison in which they 
pined away, shows many a sad memorial from their hands. 

In the summer of 1562, when Queen Elizabeth was in 
the prime of her youth and beauty, an astrologer named 
Prestal, pretending that he had cast her horoscope, affirm- 
ed that she would die in the following spring, when her 
crown would devolve by rig'ht on Mary, ex-Queen of 
France, and reigning Queen of Scots. When Edmund and 
Arthur Pole (nephews of Cardinal Pole) heard of this 
prophecy, they thought it would beseem them, as mem- 
bers of the royal family, to prepare for the coming-in of 
Mary by raising a body of troops and throwing them into 
Wales. Mary was young, and a widow ; and some one 
whispered to these poor boys that she might marry Ed- 
mund, who would then become king, and make his brother 
Arthur Duke of Clarence. Burghley seized them at the 
Dolphin Tavern, on Bankside, near the Globe playhouse, 
as they were going to take boat for Flanders. Carried 
before the Council, they protested that they had never 
sought their sovereign's life, that they had never dreamt 
of laying hands upon her crown, that their aim, however 
wrong, had been confined to bringing in the true heir when 
her throne was vacant. But their name was against them ; 
a jury found them guilty of high treason ; and a judge 
condemned them to die a traitor's death. 

Edmund was barely twenty, Arthur about thirty, when 
they were captured at Bankside. Their youth, and per- 
haps their folly, pleaded for them with the Queen ; who 
had never yet signed a warrant for any political ofiender's 
death. She left the two brothers the consolation of each 
other's society in the Beauchamp tower ; Edmund sleeping 
in the upper, and Arthur in the lower room. Each has 
left tracings on the wall ; the sadder, as I think, those of 
the younger and more innocent boy. 



White Hoses. IGl 

In the first year of his imprisonment the young Plan- 
tagenet wrote in the stone : 

DIO SEMIN 

IN LACHRIMIS IN 

EXULTATIONE METER. 

M. 21. E. POOLE, 

1562. 

Six years later there is a second inscription, now illegi- 
ble, from his hands. Half-way down the winding stair, in 
a narrow slit through the masonry, he must have sat very 
often, with the gay life of the river spread out before him, 
the ships coming up and going down, the horsemen with 
their swords and plumes, the children playing on the bank, 
the country folks staring at the lions, and a little farther 
off the processions on the bridge. From his seat on the 
stairs he could see the fatal spot near St. Mary's Church, 
where, tempted by the lying astrologer, he was taking 
boat for Flanders when seized by Burghley's men. Un- 
happy youth ! Yet he was less unhappy in the Tower 
than he might have been elsewhere. He might have been 
married to Mary ; he might have perished, as his cousin 
Darnley perished, in some Kirk of Field. Even in the 
Beauchamp tower he was luckier than many other princes 
of his race. His great-grandsire, the Duke of Clarence, 
had been drowned in the Boyer tower ; his grandmother, 
Margaret of Salisbury, had been hacked to pieces on Tow- 
er green; his father had been executed on Tower Hill. 
Compared with most of his race — who inherited the curse 
of his royal blood — his fate was mild ; since he fell into 
trouble in that golden time of Elizabeth's reign, when the 
land was free from any stain of blood. As in the upper 
room, so on the staircase, he has left two records of his 
long imprisonment. In the slit, through which he could 



162 Her Majesty's Tov^er. 

see the ships, the river, and the bridge, the church of St. 
Mary's and the playhouse at Bankside, he has twice in- 
scribed his name. 

Arthur also left inscriptions on the wall ; inscriptions 
rich in wisdom and resignation. To wit ; 

I H S 

A PASSAGE PERILLUS 

MAKETH A PORTE 

PLEASANT 

A D 1568 

ARTHUR POOLE 

M SUE 37 

A P. 

The two princes pined and died in the Tower, when 
their ashes were laid in St. Peter's Church. 



CHAPTER XXH. 

PRINCESS MAEGAKET. 

One prisoner in the Tower has the rare distinction of 
being an actual ancestress of Queen Victoria. Outside the 
strong room of the Belfry is a small chamber, on the wall 
of which appear these words : 

UPON THE TWENTIETH DAY OF JUNE 

IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD ONE THOUSAND 

FIVE HUNDRED THREESCORE AND FIVE 

WAS THE RIGHT HONORABLE COUNTESS OF 

LENNOX GRACE COMMITTED 

PRISONER TO THIS LODGING FOR THE MARRIAGE 

OF HER SON MY LORD HENRY DARNLE AND THE 

QUEEN OF SCOTLAND 



Princess Margaret. 163 

HERE IS THE NAMES THAT DO WAIT 
UPON HER NOBLE GRACE IN THIS PLACE. 
M. ELIZABETH HOSEY 
M. JHAN BAILY 
M. ELIZABETH CHAMBRLEN 
M. ROBARTE PORTYNGTON 
EDWARDE GREYNE 
ANNO DOMINI 1566 

On a second stone we read — 

AS GOD PRESERVED CHRIST HIS SON 
IN TROUBLE AND IN THRALL 
SO WHEN WE CALL UPON THE LORD 
HE WILL PRESERVE US ALL. 

The Right Honourable the Countess of Lennox' Grace 
was the Princess Margaret, daughter of Queen Margaret, 
and Queen Elizabeth's first cousin of the royal blood. 

Margaret's career as a princess living at the English 
court, may be divided into two parts : The first part re- 
cords her love afiairs until her marriage with her kinsman, 
Matthew, Earl of Lennox ; the second part records the in- 
trigues which led her son. Lord Darnley, to the consort- 
crown of Scotland, and ended with his murder at the Kirk 
of Field. . 

When Margaret came to London, at the age of fourteen, 
she lived with her aunt Mary Tudor, Queen of France, who, 
like her own mother, the Queen of Scots, had married 
again for love. Thence she went to Beaulieu, the house of 
her cousin Mary, until the birth of Elizabeth, when the 
King, her uncle, gave her a regular place at court, as first 
lady of honour to his infant child. She was then eighteen. 
Like all the ladies of her kin, she was apt to fall in love. 
While she was yet a girl, some passages between her and 
Murray had alarmed her friends ; and when she met in the 



164 Her Majesty's Tower. 

house of Anne Boleyn the young and handsome Lord 
Thomas Howard, she set the court in a flutter by her open 
preference for this kinsman of the Queen. Howard was 
encouraged by Anne to press his suit, and Margaret, in her 
lightsome mood, was very soon tempted into plighting her 
troth to the man she loved. 

That act of devotion cost Lord Thomas Howard his lib- 
erty and life. The young lady stood too near the throne 
for any man to dream of asking her hand, unless with the 
King's consent to woo and wed. Henry was much per- 
plexed about his crown. His daughter Mary had been 
tainted in her birth. Li no long time his second daughter 
was to fall under the same dark stain. He had no son ; 
and, in the absence of heirs, his crown would go to the 
children of his elder sister, the Queen of Scots. These 
children were James the Fifth and this Princess Margaret. 
James was barred by the Alien Act ; so that Margaret was 
in fact the King's lawful heir. Had Henry died before his 
son was born, Margaret would have been called to the 
throne. 

The settlement in life of such a lady was a state affair 
of hardly less moment than the marriage of Henry him- 
self. When, therefore, the King heard of a contract having 
been made by Lord Thoijias with the young princess, he 
gave instant order to have the offender quickly seized and 
safely lodged. Short work was made with him. A bill 
of attainder passed ; and Howard, condemned to die for his 
love, was left to linger out his life in the Tower, where he 
slowly pined to death — dying, if his noble kinsman, the 
poet Surrey, may be credited, for the love of his betrothed. 

The Princess Margaret was sent to the convent at Sion, 
on the Thames, where she was placed under the special 
care of the lady abbess, with instructions that she should 
be allowed to walk in the garden by the river side, though 



Princess Margaret, 165 

in other things she was still to be considered as the King's 
prisoner rather than his niece. 

To this affair of Howard and Princess Margaret we owe 
the first royal Marriage Act ; which made it treason for 
any man to marry, unless with the King's consent, given 
under the great seal, any daughter, sister, aunt, or niece of 
the reigning prince. 

By-and-bye the Princess found a fresh adorer in Charles, 
a son of Lord William Howard ; but this afi*air was less 
grave, since the lovers exchanged kisses only, and no troth 
was plighted on the lady's side. Yet Henry thought it 
well to send Cranmer to his niece with a view to dissuade 
her from playing, as it were, with fire. Then rose the ques- 
tion as to how a Tudor girl could be hindered from falling 
into love ? Only one way was known ; and by good advice 
this way was followed by the King. At the age of thirty 
she was given in wedlock to her kinsman Matthew, fourth 
Earl of Lennox — a man who not only loved her well, but, 
as a partisan of England, seemed likely to prevent her feet 
from straying into dangerous ways. So ended, in a happy 
marriage, the first stage of Princess Margaret's life. 

To the Earl of Lennox she bore two sons, Henry and 
Charles, princes of the blood royal, who were recognised 
and educated at the English court. King Henry bestow- 
ed on his niece that abbey of Jervaulx in which Adam 
Sedburgh had reared his horses and made his cheese. 

Unhappily, Margaret and Elizabeth were not good 
friends, and when Elizabeth came to the throne the Prin- 
cess fell out of favour. Many things divided them, — some 
personal, others political. Margaret is said to have done 
a wrong to the Princess when a girl, which the Queen 
could not forget, — put some slur upon her title; a slur 
which, coming from a woman whose father and mother 
were described in a papal brief as having never been mar- 



166 Her Majesty^ s Toioer. 

ried at all, the proud girl could not stomach. Margaret 
was a pretender also ; a pretender backed by a large and 
turbulent party. She was a Catholic, like her niece the 
Queen of Scots. Her husband was a Catholic ; and her 
sons, Henry and Charles, had been secretly brought up in 
their mother's faith. Thus the Catholic gentry reaped the 
large benefit of having a race of English princes on their 
side. Lord Darnley, the elder boy, was from his cradle the 
hope and boast of an army of fanatics, strong enough to 
cause the Queen much trouble, since it was reckoned by 
very shrewd heads to comprise two out of every three 
country squires rich enough to hold commissions in the 
peace. 

While these princes were yet boys, they were left in 
peace ; but as they grew in years their mother Margaret 
began to dream of a crown for her elder son. Lennox 
adopted her ideas. Their hope was to match Lord Darn- 
ley with his cousin the Queen of Scots ; a project which 
they knew that the Queen of England would never brook ; 
but which they trusted by craft and daring to bring about, 
even though it should drive her wild with rage. 

Now the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, was one of 
those topics which no English councillor could ever allow 
to escape his pillow. Mary stood next in succession to 
the crown which had been won on Bosworth Field ; next 
in blood, if not in actual law; and the purpose which had 
been kept in view by the best of Elizabeth's advisers, from 
the moment when she ceased to think of being succeeded 
by children of her own, was a union of the English and 
Scottish crowns on a single head ; an object only to be ac- 
complished by uniting them in a descendant of Henry the 
Seventh, of the Scottish line. Thus Mary's son would be 
the very next English King. Mary's choice of a second 
mate was consequently an afiair of English policy, in 



Princess Margaret. 167 

which the English Queen and council fancied they had a 
right to make their voices heard. Elizabeth wished her 
cousin to marry a man of English views ; if possible, of 
English blood. Darnley was now known to be a Papist 
— in her eyes a fatal bar. 

On hearing a first hint of this design of putting Darn- 
ley on the throne as king-consort, to become the father of 
an English line, Elizabeth threw Lennox into the Tower, 
and placed her cousin in a country-house at Sheen. The 
afiair struck Burghley as one of the gravest in which his 
mistress had ever been engaged. A match between Darn- 
ley and Mary would unite the Catholic party in England 
to the Catholic party in Scotland ; a union fatal to the 
public peace, if not dangerous to Elizabeth's throne. In 
presence of such a peril the English council had to march 
with no timid step. 

Lennox, lodged in the Tower, was closely watched ; 
denied, as he alleged, both air and exercise; worse than 
all, he was not allowed to dine and sup at the Lieutenant's 
board. Thomas Bishop was employed to rake up charges 
against him ; and this scoundrel made out a list both long 
and black. Lennox, if not his wife, could see at no great 
distance a vision of the axe and block ; and they saw the 
policy of working by another line. The Earl submitted ; 
on which Sir Edward Warner, the Lieutenant, invited him 
to dine and sup with the other prisoners of his rank. The 
Countess threw herself on the Queen's compassion; and 
Elizabeth, who liked to do her kinsfolk good, when she 
could serve them without peril, let the penitent Earl rejoin 
his wife at Sheen. 

Margaret and Lennox had only yielded to gain time. 
They had given their word, but they had never thought of 
holding to the pledge. In fact, they meant to play their 
game, and win the English crown by either fair means or 



168 Her Majesties Tower. 

by foul. If the Queen of England were against them, the 
Queen of Scots was on their side. Elizabeth was pro- 
posing Lord Robert Dudley, the handsomest man in Eu- 
rope, to her cousin ; offering as the bait of this English 
match the instant proclamation of Mary as her heir. The 
Queen of Scots, unable to see her duty with English eyes, 
refused the match. Darnley Avas a Catholic like herself; 
a descendant of Henry the Seventh like herself; and 
though he had none of the personal advantages of Lord 
Robert, she resolved to take him for her mate. 

Burghley, deceived by Margaret's penitential airs, im- 
agined that Lennox, who seemed to have given up every 
thought of the match for his son, might be employed as 
an English agent in the Scottish court. Lennox wished to 
go north on his own account ; but he wished to go north 
as the representative of English credit and English might. 
Now, Burghley desired to have a man of high rank, in 
whom he could trust, near the Queen of Scots, until she 
should have Lord Leicester as a husband by her side. 
Lennox proffered his service, professing a strong desire to 
see Leicester married to the Scottish queen. If Lennox 
had been true to his word, no safer agent for his purpose 
lay within Burghley's reach. The English had yet to learn 
that he was not true to his word. 

Supplied with pistoles to spend, and trinkets to give 
away, Lennox went north, leaving Margaret and the two 
boys in London. He was armed with letters of acceptance 
from Burghley, from Leicester, and from the Queen. He 
bore a confidential note from the Queen of England to the 
Queen of Scots. His reception at Holyrood was kind. 
The Queen received him in her chamber ; the three Ma- 
ries smiled upon him; David Rizzio gave him welcome. 
He sent the news of his reception by his wife's niece 
and her court to Leicester and to Elizabeth. His own 



Prmcess Margaret. 169 

affairs, too, were prospering ; but some difficult point of 
Scottish law required that his son. Lord Darnley, should 
be j^resent when certain deeds were being signed. He 
begged her Majesty's license for his son to make a short 
trip into the north, in order that no legal doubts might 
afterwards arise. Burghley, still believing in the Earl, 
allowed the young gentleman to start. Lennox became 
still more intimate with the Queen of Scots. Mary went 
with her ladies to sup in his room, where she danced, and 
played dice, and lost a jewel to the Earl. Backed by the 
whole English party in Mary's court, as well as by Mary 
herself, Lennox made rapid way in his suit ; and his son 
had scarcely appeared in the palace of Holyrood, ere he 
announced to his private friends in Scotland that there 
Avas such love between the royal cousins as would end in a 
match. 

On this report reaching London, orders were sent by 
Burghley for the i^romj^t return of Lennox and Darnley 
into England. Then came the blow which all along Len- 
nox had meant to deal at the English Queen. He refused 
to obey, cast off his allegiance, and defied her Majesty's 
power. He and his son were beyond her reach. 

This revolt in her own family not only vexed but alarm- 
ed the Queen, who saw her wise care for her kingdom cross- 
ed by the humour of a vain woman and the folly of a petu- 
lant boy. She arrested Margaret; and her younger son, 
Charles, a child of nine, was placed in the charge of Lady 
Knyvet, while his mother was being escorted to the Tower. 

Elizabeth hoped that the plot was checked. Knowing 
Lord Darnley and the Queen of Scots, she felt that this 
boy of nineteen was no husband for this widow of twenty- 
three. Boding evil of every kind from such a match, she 
set her face against it, even though she could not punish 
cither the reckless boy or the wilful queen. Lennox 

H 



170 Her Majesty's Tower. 

pressed his suit. Darnley made a friend of Rizzio; and 
Mary, in face of the remonstrance of her brother Murray, 
the best man in her court, gave her hand to the youth 
who, of all her suitors, was the most objectionable in En- 
glish eyes. 

When news of their private marriage, which took place 
in Rizzio's chamber, reached London, the Queen could not 
believe it. Then came the public rite ; the revolt of Mur- 
ray ; and the thousand troubles which followed in their 
train. More than once the thought of sending an army 
across the border came into Elizabeth's mind, but the 
Queen controlled her temper, and left the Scottish drama 
to end in its own dark way. 

Margaret's confinement in the Tower, though close, was 
far from being harsh. The best rooms in the Lieutenant's 
house were given up to her use and that of her attendants, 
and were furnished anew with arras, tables, stools, and 
plate. A firepan was put into her room ; which was sup- 
plied with ewers and drinking cups becoming her estate. 
Two ladies, a maid, one gentleman, and a yeoman, were 
received in her train, and lodged at the public cost in the 
Lieutenant's house. 

In this state, the daughter of Queen Margaret lay in the 
Tower. News came to her from her son. She heard of 
the private marriage in Rizzio's room ; of that scene in 
the kirk where Knox inveighed against the rule of women 
and boys ; of the flight of Murray ; of the quarrels of 
Darnley and Mary ; of the murder of Rizzio ; of the omi- 
nous reconciliation of Murray and the Queen ; and of the 
perilous situation of that son for whom she was enduring 
her sharp restraint. Few rays of comfort ever reached her 
cell. Lennox neglected, Darnley forgot her. Of course, 
she found her situation bad. Her rooms were small, her 
means were scant. When her cries reached the throne, 



Princess Mar ga^'ct. 171 

Elizabeth sent her Lord Treasurer, the Marquis of Win- 
chester, to look into her case and make things straight, if 
the royal lady would show him the way to do it. Marga- 
ret would not help the Marquis. In truth, her case was 
not one to be met by a few honied words and a few tri- 
fling cares. Her misery was that she had married a faith- 
less husband, that she had borne a foolish son, that she 
was made the pledge of an unpopular cause. 

Darnley, now king consort beyond the Tweed, offered 
himself as a chief to every man living south of that river 
who disliked the Queen ; and more than once, in his mad- 
ness, he proposed to cross the border into England, raise a 
new Pilgrimage of Grace, and drive her from the realm by 
force. 

Thus, the two royal cousins watched the course of events 
beyond the Tweed, in which they felt an equal passion; 
one from her apartments in Whitehall, the other from her 
chamber in the Tower. 

One event occurred which might have made them 
friends ; the birth of a prince. That child would be the 
next English king. In him, therefore, the two women had 
a common interest ; the first as her official heir, the second 
as her natural heir. Elizabeth melted towards the lady 
in the Tower, whose son and husband were rejoicing in 
their Scottish capital over this auspicious birth ; but the 
folly of Lennox and Darnley would not suffer her to ex- 
press her feelings in acts of grace. The daughter of King 
Henry and the daughter of Queen Margaret were still to sit 
apart; watching events beyond the Tweed; and peering 
through the distance into that cloud of tragic gloom. 

Then came the blow which was to end their strife. 
Darnley was murdered at the Kirk of Field ; the victim of 
his beautiful and perfidious wife. On this news reaching 
London, the Queen sent down to her Lieutenant, and set 



] 72 Her Majesty's Tower. 

her captive free. All the evil which she had feared was 
come to pass ; and though she could never love her cousin, 
she would not add the misery of confinement to the agonies 
of a breaking heart. 

After Queen Mary had been driven out of her kingdom, 
and Murray had been shot, Lennox was appointed Regent. 
Like Murray, he fell by an assassin's hand. Margaret, Avho 
stayed in London, sank into poverty and obscurity ; only 
broken by fresh troubles in the marriage of her second son, 
Charles, to Elizabeth Cavendish. She died at last so poor, 
that her funeral had to be conducted at the Queen's ex- 
pense ; when she was borne in a state procession to the 
great Abbey, where she lies among the kings and princes 
of her race. 

When the Princess died, her elder son's only child, James 
Stuart, was a young man ; her younger son's only child, Ara- 
bella Stuart, was a little girl. The boy, a dull feilow, was 
to wear the English crown ; the girl, a fair, bright creature, 
was to be one of that dull boy's captives in the Tower. 



CHAPTER XXIIL 

PLOT AND COUNTEEPLOT. 



Sixteen months after Darnley's murder in the Kirk of 
Field, Queen Mary, his wife and cousin, was a fugitive 
from justice on English soil. She had married his mur- 
derer and lost her crown. 

At this moment of her career, the situation of Mary 
Stuart seemed lonely enough to subdue the wildest spirit. 
She had lost, not only her crown, but her reputation and 
her child. The half-brother who had been her companion 
in youth, was in arms against her. The thanes who had 



Plot and Counterplot. 173 

stood around her throne, had flung her into jail. The par- 
liament of her kingdom had set on her brow the brand of 
murderess. What was she to live for more ? At twenty- 
six she had exhausted every passion of the soul. She had 
reigned as Queen since she was six days old. She had 
been adored by poets, warriors, and musicians. She had 
married three husbands ; and these three husbands she 
had lost by death, by murder, and by captivity. She 
had enjoyed every luxury of earth, and she had suffer- 
ed every bolt from heaven. At an age when good wom- 
en are beginning to taste the flavour of life, she was al- 
ready separated from her partner in crime, and seeking 
on a foreign soil a refuge from her country, her brother, 
and her son. 

Such a fugitive might have been expected to live in 
quiet, to shun the public eye, and to devote her days and 
nights to making her peace with God. But this was not 
the view which Mary Stuart and her friends — most of all 
her clerical friends — were disposed to take of her duty to- 
wards the land into which she had come. Granted she 
was a great sinner; yet sinners have their rights in the 
law as well as saints. She was a queen, and queens are 
not to be punished for offences like the rank and file. Da- 
vid, said her divines, was an adulterer and a murderer ; 
yet his people had not risen against him, and taken away 
his crown. The commons have no authority to judge their 
kings. If kings go wrong, the Lord will chastise them 
with rods of steel. They must be left to God ; but they 
must be left to God in hope and charity, not in wrath of 
spirit. Even from the Scottish pulpits, in the midst of 
people to whom the details of her life were known, these 
doctrines were put forth. * St. David was an adulterer, 
and so was she,' cried Alexander Gordon, Archbishop of 
Athens and Bishop of Galloway ; ' St. David committed 



1 74 Her Majesty's Tower. 

murder, and so did she. But what is this to the matter ?' 
In Gordon's view it was hardly anything at all. 

From the hour of her stepping on English soil, Mary 
Stuart began to plot against Elizabeth's peace, and in all 
her plots she had the personal sanction and service of John 
Leslie, the able and learned Bishop of Ross, who became 
her agent, her confessor, and her spy. This bishop was a 
divine of the Italian and Spanish type ; supple, tolerant, 
unscrupulous ; a man of courts and of affairs ; easy with 
fair sinners, facile with great ; never afraid of lying and 
deceit ; and bent on serving his church, even though he 
should have to do so at the peril of his soul. The plots 
and counterplots of this crafty woman and her yet more 
crafty priest, have no examples, except in the Spanish and 
Italian comedy of intrigue. 

To any other woman than Mary Stuart, to any other 
bishop than John Leslie, the events which had driven the 
Queen of Scots from Holyrood, and of which her English 
cousin, in giving her shelter from her foes, was bound to 
take due notice, would have seemed sufficient to cancel 
her claim on the English crown. She had no rights in 
London which she had not in Edinburgh ; and the highest 
court in Scotland had deprived her by solemn acts of all 
those rights. Found guilty of murder, her very life stood 
forfeit to the law. In England, too, she was a stranger, 
excluded from succession by the Alien Act. 

But all these facts and laws were nothing to the Queen 
of Scots, and to her spiritual adviser the Bishop of Ross. 
She had the example of her cousin, Mary Tudor, before her 
eyes. Mary Tudor had found no favour in the law ; yet 
law and power united — the letters-j^atent, the fleet, the 
army, and the council — had not been able to sustain the 
nine-days' Queen against the higher force which lay in her 
rights of blood. Ross pretended that a right of nature is 



Plot and Counterplot, 175 

not to be lost by personal offences ; and he cited his fa- 
vourite case of David on the house-toj) in Zion, and Uriah 
in the fore-front of the war at Rabbah. Neither Mary 
Stuart nor her priest could quite forget the points which, 
in comparison w^ith Mary Tudor, told most fatally against 
her claims. Unlike her English cousin, the Queen of Scots 
was an alien, a murderess, and a fugitive. She had no 
great friends abroad, and not a single friend at home. But 
she had weapons, and they knew it, such as Mary Tudor 
could never boast ; bright eyes, a velvet touch, and a 
wheedling tongue. The Bishop himself, though he had 
professionally renounced the devil and all his works, could 
not escape the charm of Mary's smile. No woman in the 
world had so much power of making fools of men. Besides 
her dazzling beauty, she had a wide experience in the ways 
of love, and knew the arts by which men's senses are en- 
slaved. No poet, warrior, troubadour, had yet been able 
to resist her wiles ; the best and worst had fallen equally 
at her feet ; for when her grace and radiance failed of their 
proud effect, she could throw into the charm by which she 
drew men to her the lustre of her royal birth and her ex- 
pected crown. 

With such advantages of face and birth, how could 
Mary Stuart want for friends ? Among the English lords 
who were coming to York with power to judge between 
her and the Scots, was no man open to the flash of peerless 
eyes? If Mary could find a lover on the bench of judges, 
she might rebuke her brother, the Regent Murray, and 
weaken the position of her cousin the English Queen. 

From the lords sent down to York on the Scottish busi- 
ness, she selected as her prey, with the assent of her Cath- 
olic counsellor, that stern reformer, Thomas, fourth Duke 
of Norfolk, the richest noble and strictest Protestant in 
her cousin's court. It is not likely that she would have 



1*76 Iler Ilajesty^s To^cer. 

gone so far as to marry him ; for he was crabbed in tem- 
per, weak in purpose, ugly in figure ; even if the sour but 
honest Duke could have been persuaded to take her as a 
wife, while her husband, Bothwell, was yet alive. But 
short of actual marriage, a clever woman might do much ; 
and Mary's misfortune was that her brain was only too 
j)rompt to suggest the way of doing any bad thing on 
which she set her heart. 

Norfolk was not the only conquest which she deigned to 
make. Thomas Percy — son of Sir Thomas the Pilgrim — a 
man who, on the fall of Dudley, had been restored by Philij^ 
and Mary to the ancient honours of his house, as seventh 
Earl of INTorthumberland, and ^Yarden of the East and Mid- 
dle Marches — was in cross humour with the Queen. He 
thought himself ill used. Elizabeth had taken from him 
the great power of Warden of the Marches, and given this 
power to William, Lord Grey of Wilton, a man whom 
Percy regarded as inferior to himself in birth and rank. 
Percy's confessor found fault with the policy pursued by 
Burghley ; and Percy had begun to thuik that the old re- 
ligion and the old families would never fare well in En- 
gland until the dynasty was changed. The Queen of Scots 
had an easy conquest in the Earl. 

But Percy was one of her minor cards ; to be played or 
not, as fortune should suggest ; her game was to be made 
on Norfolk, whom she had drawn to her side in body and 
soul. ' Have a care, my lord, on what pillow you lay your 
head,' said Elizabeth slyly to the Duke. Poor Duke, the 
only pillow to which Mary Stuart could lead him was the 
block! 

For a time, the coming over of Norfolk and his party to 
the Queen of Scots gave a lively turn to her affairs ; lead- 
ing to many wild hopes in the north, and to much corre- 
spondence with the courts of Brussels and Madrid. For 



Plot and Counterplot. 1V7 

the conveyance of this dangerous correspondence, Leslie, 

who had been received by Elizabeth as an ambassador 

from the Queen of Scots— had to iind out trusty agents ; 
men who were willing to risk their lives for either a purse 
of money or a bishop's thanks. Where a fanatic could 
be found, he was naturally preferred. 

Among the shrewdest of the many agents employed by 
the Bishop of Ross, in going and coming between London 
and Brussels, was a young Fleming, known as Monsieur 
Charles, who seems to have been a messenger and spy to 
Signor Eidolfi, the secret minister of Pius the Fifth. Clever 
with pen and pencil, speaking four or five languages like 
a native, a good Catholic, poor, and of no family, attached 
to Mary Stuart as to a royal saint, professing boundless 
reverence for his Church, the young Fleming, Charles 
Bailly, was just the man for conspirators like Ridolfi and 
the Bishop of Ross. He knew the country and the Con- 
tinent. Li Scotland a Scot, in Italy an Italian, in Flanders 
a Fleming, in France a Gaul, he could go anywhere, and 
pass for anything. One day he might be a merchant, a 
second day an artist, a third day a courtier. Cobham, 
then Lord Warden of the Five Ports, was keen of scent, 
yet Monsieur Charles crossed and recrossed from Dover 
without exciting his jealous quest. Not until he and his 
packet of letters fell under Burghley's scrutiny was the 
young Fleming caught in the trap, and made to give up 
the secrets which he knew. 

Norfolk was led to fancy that he could wed the Queen 
of Scots, and carry her back to Edinburgh with the help of 
Spanish gold and English steel. Leslie thought so too. 
Not that the Duke and Bishop regarded Mary as a royal 
saint, whom it was a sacred duty to assist in recovering 
her lost throne. They knew her too well. Howard, while 
he was offering her his hand, believed in his heart that she 

H 2 



178 Her Majesty's Tower. 

had been privy to Darnley's death ; and Leslie, who knew 
her as only a priest could know her, believed that she had 
not only taken oif her second husband, but her first. But 
the fact of Mary being a bad woman was of no account to 
men with purposes like theirs. She was a Queen. In 
her veins ran the blood of Stuart, Tudor, and Plantagenet. 
Her children, thought Howard, will wear two crowns ; her 
advent in London, thought Leslie, will serve the universal 
Church. The two men thought of Mary as a tool which 
they could use for purposes of their own. Norfolk per- 
suaded himself that he was not a boy, to be put aside like 
Darnley ; and the Bishop of Ross repeated to himself that 
even when David had taken Uriah's wife he had not been 
wholly cast out from the fold of God. The Duke thought 
himself a wary man ; young in years, but ripe in knowl- 
edge ; with an experience of married life equal at least to 
that of Mary, since he had buried three duchesses of Nor- 
folk before he was thirty-one years old. The Bishop must 
have laughed under his cope at the Duke's pretence of be- 
ing able to control the Queen of Scots. 

Elizabeth sent for Norfolk, Li the gallery at ^Yhitehall 
she rated him for trying after a match with her cousin, a 
pretender to her crown, without coming to her for leave. 
The Duke made light of theaftair; he cared nothing, he 
said, for the Queen of Scots ; he had nothing to gain by the 
alliance ; his own estates in England being worth little 
less than the whole kingdom of Scotland^ Words so 
haughty must have struck the Queen. The foolish fellow 
added that when he stood in his own tennis-court in Nor- 
wich he felt himself a prince. 

What wonder that the Queen was cold to him after 
that memorable day? Norfolk felt that he was losing 
favour ; and to make things worse for him he withdrew 
from court without taking leave ; retiring to Kenning 



Plot and Counterplot. 179 

Hall, his great castle on the Waveney, which was linked 
in every one's memory with the advent of that other Cath- 
olic Queen. But Elizabeth was not Jane. Norfolk was 
soon arrested and in the Tower ; though not in peril of his 
life until Ross and Mary began to stir up friends in the 
north, sons of the old Pilgrims of Grace, to make a divei'- 
sion in his favor by a sudden appeal to arms. 

Percy, Earl of Northumberland, rose at once. Joined 
by Charles Nevill, Earl of Westmoreland, he donned the 
Pilgrim's badge, a cross, with the five wounds of Christ ; 
entered Durham at the head of his armed followers ; de- 
clared the Catholic Church restored to her ancient rights ; 
attended high mass in the Cathedral ; and then marched 
forward to Clifford Moor, on which he encamped with six 
thousand horse and four thousand foot. The rebel Earls 
proposed to advance on York, and raising the country as 
they went along, push onward for the Don. If they could 
reach Tutbury, on the Dove, where the Queen of Scots 
then dwelt, and carry her back to Scotland on their shields, 
Percy might hope for some sweet reward, and both the 
Earls could defy Elizabeth's power. But while Percy and 
Nevill were dreaming, Sussex, Clinton, and Warwick, 
were rushing on their lines with overwhelming power. 
The rebels retreated across the border ; whence Nevill es- 
caped to Flanders, where the Countess of Northumberland 
joined him ; while Percy himself, unable to get on board a 
vessel in the Firth, was seized by Murray, and flung into 
Lochleven castle, the strong and lonely pile from which 
Queen Mary had escaped. 



ISO Iler Majesty's Tower. 



CHAPTER XXIY. 

MONSIEUR CIIAKLES. 

The game seemed passing out of Leslie's bands ; but 
tlie Bishop of Ross knew far too much of what was passing 
out of sight to feel discouraged. His friend Ridolli, tlie 
Papal agent, had drawn up a list of men in the English 
court on whom the Pope could rely ; and this list, of which 
Leslie had a copy, included many of the most ancient bar- 
ons of the realm. "Wliat was going on in Rome was to 
bring a change over Mary's fortunes. A Papal bull was 
to be launched ; Elizabeth was to be cast down ; all good 
Catholics were to be charged, on jieril of their souls, to 
rise up against her. The Queen dethroned, who was to 
take her place ? That was Leslie's care. 

Under the name of *A defence of the honour of Mary, 
Queen of Scotland,' Leslie wrote a book which he sent 
Monsieur Charles abroad to get printed for him at the 
Liege press ; a dangerous book to own, since it dealt, in a 
very bold spirit, with the whole question of Mary's claims 
to the English crown. In his own mind Leslie had formed 
a perfect plan ; the first part of which was to get Norfolk 
freed from the Tower, so as to have all his forces in the 
front. Li this feat he succeeded, at the cost of some lying 
and much pledging on Norfolk's part. Norfolk being free, 
Leslie sent Monsieur Charles to Liege for copies of Ins 
book, so as to be ready to act when the Papal bull arrived. 
Events, he hoped, would take the following course. The 
world would read his argument on the title, and be con- 
vinced. When men were ready for the trutli, tlie Papal 



Monsieur Charles. 181 

bull would arrive. lie would then announce that the 
Queen was deposed, that the Church had cut her off, that 
the Catholic powers had declared war against her, that the 
whole country was up in arms. On this the Catholic lords 
would seize the Tower; Norfolk would march on Tut- 
bury; and in a few weeks Mary would be crowned in 
Westminster, the Spanish party would come into power, 
and the Universal Church would be restored. 

The plot was a very fine plot on paper ; but Leslie's in- 
struments failed him, and, in truth, he failed himself. A 
raid of some English troops into the Western Highlands 
piqued him into a premature jiublication of the Papal 
brief. The barons were not ready ; and as the London 
citizens read the bull and passed on laughing, the great 
conspiracy ended like a farce, except to Leslie and his 
agents. 

Monsieur Charles was leaving Brussels for London witli 
copies of the Bishop's book, and letters from Lady North- 
umberland, Lord Westmoreland, and other exiles, when 
the Italian minister, Ridolfi, gave him a packet of three 
letters addressed to the Bishop of Ross. Landing at Do- 
ver, Monsieur Charles was overhauled by the Lord War- 
den's men ; and the books and letters being found in his 
bag, he was carried up to London for examination by Lord 
Cobham himself. The books were in English, and the of- 
fence of bringing them into England was no trifle ; but 
the three letters, as Monsieur Charles knew only too well, 
were far more serious than the books. On his way to Cob- 
ham's house in Blackfriars, he contrived to send news of 
his arrest to the Bishop of Ross. 

Monsieur Charles and his bag were examined by Wil- 
liam Brooke, Lord Cobham, and his brother Thomas, once 
the companion of Wyat. The letters were in cypher, and 
two of them were addressed to 30 and 40. The young 



182 Her Majesty's Tower. 

Fleming said he knew nothing about them ; he was only 
a messenger ; he could not read the cypher ; nor had he 
any clue to the numbers. But on closer search of Mon- 
sieur Charles's clothes, a key to this cypher was found 
sewed up in his coat ; by means of which key Lord Cob- 
ham and his brother were soon aware what perilous stuff 
Monsieur Charles had brought to Dover in his bag. Cob- 
ham felt that he must carry the books and papers to 
Burghley ; but his brother Thomas, now become a Catho- 
lic, catching a sign from Monsieur Charles, opposed this 
course ; urging that the moment these books and papers 
came into Burghley's hands, their friend, the Duke of Nor- 
folk, would be a dead man. Cobham could not see it, nor 
could Monsieur Charles explain to him how the Duke was 
touched. But in fact, as Bailly knew very well, number 
30 meant the Duke of Norfolk, number 40 meant Lord 
Lumley ; and the letters addressed to them by the Pope's 
agent contained treason enough to bring twenty heads to 
the block, even under a Queen who had never yet shed 
one drop of traitor's blood. 

Cobham got into his boat, and pulled for Burghley's 
house ; but on the way he softened towards his brother's 
prayer ; the more so, as he thought despondingly of much 
that had passed between Ridolfi and hnuself. For Cob- 
ham was one of the barons in Ridolfi's secret list. Yet, 
what could he do ? The bag had been seized at Dover ; 
Monsieur Charles had been openly brought to town ; the 
searchers had seen both his books and letters; and not 
many hours would elapse before Burghley would have re- 
ports from his spies. Concealment was vain. Something 
might be done under the plea of accident, to save the 
Bishop and the Duke. Perplexed in mind, he left the 
books at Burghley's house, and took back the letters to 
his own ; where he sealed them up afresh and sent them 



Monsieur Charles. 183 

over to the Bishop of Ross, with a request that the prelate 
would come down next day to Blackfriars and open the 
packet in the Lord Warden's presence. 

Leslie understood his hint. Breaking the seal, and 
taking out the dangerous missives, the Bishop slipped 
away to the Spanish embassy, where he told Don Geran 
his bad news, and begged assistance in his trouble. The 
ambassador saw that the packet must be taken next day 
to Cobham's house. They knew it would be sent on to 
Burghley; and that if Burghley saw those papers, the 
Bishop would be ruined, the Duke would be executed, and 
the Queen of Scots overthrown. Could they keep back 
the papers ? Could they foist a false packet of news on 
Burghley, yet prevent him from guessing that he was 
tricked? Bishop and ambassador thought they could. 
Burghley would know that letters had been seized; he 
would want to read those letters ; he would expect to find 
treason in them. All might be arranged, if Leslie and 
Geran were left alone. Locked in a private closet, the 
Scottish prelate and the Spanish minister spent the long 
night in forging papers ; concocting a series of cyphered 
letters, tinged, indeed, with treason to throw Burghley off 
his guard, but away from the matters which were truly 
under hand. Some of these papers they wrote in the cy- 
pher found in Monsieur Charles's coat. They threw in 
the Papal bull ; and the packet was then carefully sealed. 
Before daylight came, their work was done. 

The true letters from Ridolfi were now sent on to Nor- 
folk and Lumley ; the forged letters and the brief were 
taken to Cobham's house in the bag ; and, when they were 
safely delivered, the Bishop ventured, with consummate 
craft, to write a letter to Burghley, complaining that his 
servant, Bailly, had been arrested, and that some letters, 
which he was bringing over from Brussels, were detained. 



184 Har Mu jest if 8 Tower, 

Leslie, who took the high tone of an ambassador, begged 
his lordship to give orders that his servant might be re- 
leased, and his letters restored. The Bishop felt no scru- 
ple in adding that he could not say what these letters 
contained ; but could and would say that not one word in 
them would be used by him except as Burghley should 
see fit. 

For a moment Burghley was deceived by these artful 
lies ; but he was cautious enough to send Monsieur Charles 
to the Marshalsea, where he would be watched by very 
sharp eyes. In the Marshalsea, Monsieur Charles found 
one of the suifering saints : William Herllie, a kinsman of 
Lady Northumberland; a man who had fallen with the 
family fortunes, and was now the occupant of a wretched 
cell. Herllie, who was known to the Bishop of Ross and to 
the Spanish ambassador, was regarded by his fellow Catli- 
olics as a victim to Burghley's Protestant zeal, since he was 
often put into irons, locked in a close room, and fed on 
bread and water. Every one pitied him — every one trust- 
ed him. Women, who saw him pass by pale and shiver- 
ing, said he could not live ; and men, who had a firmer 
hold on life, were anxious to obtain the consolation of his 
blessing and the profit of his advice. Yet this suffering 
saint was in Burghley's pay ; and six nights after Bailly's 
arrival at the Marshalsea, Burghley held in his hands some 
clue to the Bishop's plot. 

Leslie had tried to open a direct communication with 
Monsieur Charles in prison ; but Burghley had taken care 
that he should fail ; and, on the failure of his first attempts, 
he tried what could be done through the sufibring saint. 
Through William Herllie his letters were passed on to 
Monsieur Charles, and answers from Monsieur Charles 
were duly received by the Bishop of Ross. But the adroit 
and unscrupulous prelate was not aware that his letters, 



Monsieur Charles. 185 

and the answers to them, passed through Burghley's hands, 
and were copied by Burghley's clerks. Being in cypher, 
these letters told Burghley no more than that the Bish- 
op was in clandestine correspondence with the prisoner. 
More was wanting to justify Leslie's arrest ; and the suf- 
fering saint was employed to get a copy of Bailly's cypher. 
But here the impostor failed; and Monsieur Charles dis- 
covered, through a luckless blunder on the part of Herllie, 
that the suffering saint, and cousin of Lady Northumber- 
land, was a common cheat and spy. 

Other and sharper courses were now adopted. Burgh- 
ley sent for Monsieur Charles, laid the copies of his letters 
to the Bishop, with the Bishop's replies, before him, and 
bade him instantly read them out. Bailly pretended that 
he could not read them — he had lost the cypher, and could 
not recall the signs. Burghley told him he was lying, and 
that the rack should make him tell the truth. Monsieur 
Charles was sent to the Tower, and Sir Owen Hopton 
lodged him in the good Lord Cobham's room, on the walls 
of which he scratched at once this warning: 

I. H. s. 

1571 

Die 10 Aprilis. 

Wise men ought 

circumspectly to se what 

they do, to examen 

before they speake, to prove 

before they take in hand, 

to beware whose companey 

they use, and abouve al 

things to whom they 

truste. 

Charles Bailly. 



186 Her Majesty^ s Tower. 

Yet his own hard lessons had been poorly learnt. During 
the months of April and May he was often questioned by Sir 
Owen ; sometimes, though not severely, on the rack ; and 
as he felt no wish to be a martyr, he complained to the 
Bishop of Ross : who, in mortal fear lest he should tell 
what he knew about Ridolfi's letters and the books printed 
at Lieofe, sent him such comfort as he could find ; beds to 
lie on, food for his table, good advice for his soul. Most 
of all, Leslie begged Monsieur Charles to get strength in 
his travail by thinking of what holy men had often sufier- 
ed for the truth. 

Burghley got at the poor Fleming's secret, without hav- 
ing to break his bones. 

There happened to be lying in the Tower in those days, 
a man whom all his fellow-Catholics, regarded as a genuine 
saint. This man was John Story, Doctor of the Canon 
Law ; a man who had been bred to conspiracy, who had 
renounced his country, who had been naturalized in Spain. 
Story had been kidnaj^ped in Flanders, brought to London, 
lodged in the Lollards' tower, tried for his ofience, and sen- 
tenced to death. Elizabeth's desire to keep her reign free 
from political executions, had heretofore saved him from 
the gallows. 

This man had formerly been a tenant of Beauchamp 
tower, on the wall of which he had carved his name : 

1570 

JOHN STORE 

DOCTOR 

But he seems to have been removed before Bailly came in ; 
as the success of Burghley's humane and humorous con- 
trivance for making Monsieur Charles confess, turned upon 
his not being acquainted with Story even by sight. 

Since the open war began between Rome and London 



Monsieur Charles. 187 

with the Papal brief, it was understood that the law would 
be allowed to take its course ; and as Story lay under sen- 
tence, he was reverenced by his fellow-Catholics as a man 
who was about to die. What Story said was Gospel ; and 
Monsieur Charles, like every other Catholic prisoner, was 
anxious for his good advice. Great, therefore, was his joy 
when he opened his eyes one night on a tall, thin figure 
which stood beside his pallet, and answered to the name 
of Story. In the face of his own warning on the wall, 
Monsieur Charles took the stranger's word ; opened his ears 
to the words of an impostor, and consented to act a part, 
the outline of which the impostor sketched for him. * Pre- 
tend,' said the false Story, ' to enter Burghley's service and 
to play the spy on Leslie ; that is the way to be of use to 
Mary and the Church. Burghley has got the bishop's cy- 
]3her : but you may make a merit of giving it up. You 
will tell him nothing, and gain his confidence, by reading 
the letters.' A sudden light seemed to flash on Monsieur 
Charles. So good a man as Story must know best. On the 
morrow he was to be racked again. Here, then, a door 
was opened by which he could escape Sir Owen and the 
torture, and yet do service to the Bishop and the Church. 
In the morning he rose to confess whatever he knew, and 
was greatly surprised to find that when he had told his 
tale, he had betrayed his master and done himself no good. 
Monsieur Charles's revelations showed how vast a con- 
spiracy had been organized by Leslie and the Spanish par- 
ty against Elizabeth's crown. The danger in which the 
Queen was placed by the Bishop's plot and the Papal brief, 
was used as an argument for removing her scruples against 
taking life. Pressed on all sides by foes, the Queen at last 
gave way ; and the iron age of her reign set in. Story 
was hanged. The Bishop of Ross was seized. The Duke 
of Norfolk was lodojed in the Tower once more. 



188 



Her 3Iajest}fs Tower, 



In the fall of that year Monsieur Charles mscribed a new 
set of morals on the wall of Beauchamp tower : 

I H S 



"" 


PRINCIPIVM SAPIENTE TIMOR DOMINI. 






XPS. 




Anno D. 1571 10 Sept. 




ca 


The most unhapy 




w 


man in the world is he 


td 




that is not pacient in ad- 


W 


^ 


versities. For men are not 




S 


killed with the adversities 




< 


they have : but with y^ impa- 





8 


cience which they suffer. 


8 




Tout vient assoient quy peult attendre 


Gli sospiri ne son testimonie veri dell' angos- 


■ 




cia mia 




LxUaries liauiy 




£Et. 29. 


„ 


HOEPENDE, HERT PACIENTE. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



BISHOP OF EOSS. 



At first, John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, was visited in his 
own house by Lord Sussex, and put under question as to the 
correspondence with Monsieur Charles, the mission of Ri- 
dolfi, and the letters addressed to 30 and 40. He told a new 
set of Ues, and Burghley knew that they were lies. Bailly's 
confessions had told him much, and Mary's answers to ques- 
tions, the object of which she could not guess, completed 
what the Fleming had left unsaid. 



BisJiop of lioGS. 189 

Yet even now, witli proofs of Leslie's treason in her hands, 
the Queen would not consent to lodge him in the Tower. 
He was an ambassador, the minister of a sovereign prince. 
Up to this moment Elizabeth had refused to recognise the 
state of things in Scotland, and to receive at her court an 
ambassador from king James. She had treated Mary as 
the actual Queen of Scots, and although that royalty was a 
mere shadow, Elizabeth would not agree to depress her cous- 
in's party in the north so much as would be done by the ar- 
rest of her agent in the English court. 

But the plot was coming out shred by shred. Norfolk's 
servants confessed to much, and Norfolk himself, when lock- 
ed in the Tower, told all the rest. Lord Cobham, too, alarm- 
ed by what he saw going on, came forward to confess hav- 
ing kept back the letters brought over by Monsieur Charles. 
The secret numbers were discovered to mean Norfolk and 
Lumley. When these facts were known, the case was again 
submitted by Burghley to the Queen. Who could answer 
for the public safety while the chief director of these plot- 
ters remained at large ? Elizabeth saw the need for action, 
yet even now she would have gladly seized on any excuse 
for leaving the Bishop of Ross alone. She said the crown 
lawyers should be consulted on a case. Burghley obeyed 
her hint, and in a short time reported that the crown lawyers 
were of opinion — in the first place, that a prince who had 
been lawfully deposed like Mary Stuart, had no sovereign 
rights at all ; in the second place, that an ambassador who 
had been concerned in a conspiracy like John Leslie, forfeit- 
ed his rights of representation. On reading these reports, 
Elizabeth gave way so far as to allow of the Bishop being 
lodged in the Tower, in the rooms which had been occupied 
by Cranmer, but she would in no wise consent that he should 
be either put to the rack or threatened with the rack. 

By a lucky chance, these merciful limitations of Burghley's 



190 Iler Majesty^ s Tower. 

powers were not hinted to the Bishop, who might have liekl 
out lonorer had he known that his bones were safe. But in 
his chamber in the bloody Tower, he heard from day to day 
of men bemg racked until they told the truth, and when 
Burghley rejected his first confessions as idle talk, and gave 
him forty-eight hours to consider what he would say, his 
strength of will broke do'WTi. When the judges sent for 
him on the third day, Leslie answered the questions put to 
him with the frankness of a man who has done his best and 
worst, and looks back on his course with consumiBg scorn. 
Never was a foul heart emptied^ of more perilous stuff. He 
explained the secret history of Norfolk's doings in York; 
the part which he had taken in Northumberland's rising ; 
the plot for seizing the Queen, for raising an insurrection in 
East Anglia, and for bringing the Walloons into Essex. He 
confessed for Mary Stuart as well as for himself. He spoke 
of her privity to Darnley's murder, and he accused her of 
meaning to kill Bothwell also. Finally, as a Catholic prelate, 
he wrote an admonitory letter to his royal mistress, warning 
her not to meddle with plots in the time to come, but to 
trust in God and in her good sister the English Queen. 
Mary w\as profoundly moved on reading Leslie's words. 

* The hand is Esau's hand,' she murmured, ' but the voice is 
Jacob's.' After the rising of Percy and Nevill, Mary had 
been removed from Tutbury to Chatsworth, Coventry, 
Wingfield, and Sheffield, in the last of which places she w^as 
lying when made aware of her most serious loss. On find- 
ing that she had not only lost her ambassador, but found in 
him a critic and perhaps a foe, she burst into sullen rage. 

* He is a flayed and fearful priest,' she cried, * he has done 
what they would have him do.' All this was true enough, 
but the royal lady's wrath could not help her to a servant 
equally adroit. Norfolk was the first to suffer from these 
confessions. Leslie told enough to slay him, but William 



Bishop of lioss. 191 

Ilerllie, the suffering saint of the Marshalsea, found out a 
good deal more. The Duke's servants and secretaries, 
thrown into the same ward with HerlUe, were soon in the 
saint's confidence, and every night reports of what they told 
him were sent over the water to Burghley's house. No man 
in English story had more evidence of guilt to fight against 
than Norfolk. Would Elizabeth put him to death? To 
the last moment she said nay. 

No Queen had ever such good reason to hold her own 
in the way of mercy ; for since the day of her sister's death 
not a drop of blood had been shed on Tower Hill. 

The fact is one without example. For two hundred years 
the axe on Tower Hill had never been at rest ; it is doubt- 
ful whether in all the reigns from Richard of Bordeaux to 
Mary Tudor, a single year had escaped the stain of political 
murder. The reddest reign of all was that of Mary ; a reign 
which lasted five years only ; yet filled the land with mourn- 
ing, and smeared the page of history with blood. It is Eliz- 
abeth's glory that she put an end to this feast of death; 
that for twelve years of her golden prime she never signed 
a political sentence ; that, until Mary Stuart came into En- 
gland, and the Papal bull was issued, she banished from 
English life the old dark image of the headsman and his 
block. 

What wonder that the poets called her country Merrie 
England ! 

While the Queen was debating what to do, the Scottish 
prelate was making the best of his situation in the Bloody 
tower. Being called a Bishop, Sir Owen Ilopton, the Lieu- 
tenant, had begun by treating him as an English baron, 
supplying him with food, fire, and lights at the rate of 535. 
4c/. a-week for diet, and Q>s. 8d. a-week for fuel. He had his 
own servant, Cuthbert Reid, a Scot, to wait upon him. But 
some of his indulgences were in time withdrawn. Reid, his 



192 Iler Majesty's Tower. 

servant, left him. Hopton informed him that he must pro- 
vide his own food and fuel ; for the allowance made to pris- 
oners was made from estates w^hich had been seized to the 
prince's use ; but Leslie had no estates to seize. In the win- 
ter he fell sick of cramp and ague, a common disease in the 
Bloody tower, and he wrote to ask Fenelon, the French Am- 
bassador, for five hundred crowns to j)ay his weekly bills. 
As some solace in his misery, Leslie employed his knife in 
carving a record of his captivity in the Bloody tower. A 
long Latin inscription, which is unhappily worn by damp and 
years, concludes with this name and date : 

JO. EPS. ROSSEN. SCOTVS 

1572 

In the spring of this year a prospect of deliverance opened 
upon Leslie, which was perhaps more terrible to him than 
the chambers of the Bloody tower. Since the day when 
Percy crossed the border into Scotland, Burghley had never 
ceased to press the ruling Regents, Murray, Lennox, and 
Mar, for his surrender as a rebel to his Queen. Of course, 
the Regents had declined to meet him ; yet Percy had 
been kept a prisoner in Lochleven Castle, under the charge 
of Sir WilUam Douglas, a Highland chief. More than once, 
the Scottish court suggested the policy of an exchange; 
of giving up the Earl of Northumberland, and taking in 
his place the Bishop of Ross ; but to such an act of barter 
the pride of Elizabeth could not stoop. Nor was the Court 
of Scotland eager to give up the Earl ; since a rebel of so 
much consequence on the border was a capital hostage to 
hold for the English Queen. But Leslie never could be sure 
that Burghley and Mar would not come to terms ; and he 
knew that once he were given up to Mar, his shrift was 
likely to be short. At the end of May, he heard, to his 
great delight, that Percy was in English hands, having been 



Bishop of Hoss. 193 

sold by Sir William Douglas to Lord Hunsdon, Governor 
of Berwick, for two thousand pounds. 

This sale being made, the Bishop felt safe enough, for no 
English rebel of rank was now in captivity beyond the 
Tweed; and from his chambers in the Bloody tower he 
could watch with comparative comfort the dance of death. 

Norfolk was the first to die ; and the fact that he was 
the first political offender since her Majesty's reign began, 
occurred to him on the scaffold ; adding, as it would seem, 
a pang to the bitterness of his remorse. He died denounc- 
ing the Pope's religion, and humbly begging his pardon of 
the Queen. * I am the first in her Majesty's reign to suffer ; 
may I be the last !' he cried. The assembly sobbed, * Amen.' 

A few days later, Northumberland was put to the axe in 
York. Lord Hunsdon tried to save him ; thinking him a 
better man than his heir. Sir Henry, second son of Sir Thom- 
as the Pilgrim. The title, entailed on this Sir Henry, could 
not be withdrawn for his brother's offence ; yet Hunsdon, 
who knew the northmen well, sent Burghley w^ord that the 
new Earl would be far more dangerous than the old. But 
Burghley saw no way of pardoning such a man as Percy ; the 
leader of a great revolt and a great apostasy ; and towards 
the end of August, Leslie heard in the Bloody tower, that 
the second of his illustrious victims had laid his head upon 
the block. 

For Northumberland, it is not likely that Leslie cared ; 
but Norfolk was his confidential friend ; and he must have 
felt that his plots had brought the unhappy Duke to his 
untimely end. Perhaps he consoled himself with the reflec- 
tion that Norfolk might have done worse than die without 
knowing what Mary Stuart was. Any way, he made to 
Thomas Wilson, doctor of divinity, a confession which that 
clergyman reports to Burghley in these words : 

* He said further, upon speech I had with him, that tlio 

I 



194 Her Majesti/s Tower. 

Queen his mistress is not fit for any husband : for first, he 
saith, she poisoned her husband, the French king, as he hath 
credibly understood ; again, she consented to the murder of 
her late husband, the Lord Darnley ; thirdly, she matched 
with the murderer, and brought him to the field to be mur- 
dered ; and last of all, she pretended marriage with the 
Duke, with whom, as he thinks, she would not long have 
kept faith, and the Duke would not have had the best days 
with her.' 

The English clergyman who reports the Bishop's words, 
can only add, in comment : * What a Queen ! and what an 
ambassador !' 

As nothing more could now be got from Leslie, he was 
suffered to depart from the Bloody tower, on the under- 
standing that he was to live abroad, and trouble her Majes- 
ty no more. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

MURDER OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 

The Bishop of Ross left his chamber in the Bloody tow- 
er to the third of his illustrious victims ; to that Henry 
Percy who succeeded the Lochleven fugitive, as the eighth 
Earl of Northumberland. 

Like all the great border chiefs of the Tudor age, Per- 
cy had been much employed against the Scots ; though he 
was known to be one of those sticklers for the old creed 
who bowed with only a sullen and disdainful mind to the 
new order of things in Church and State. As a soldier 
he seems to have done his duty ; fighting his friends the 
French as fiercely as he fought his enemies the Scots ; and 
standing by his mistress, even when his brother, the seventh 



Murder of Northumberland. 1 95 

earl, had joined with Lord "Westmoreland against their 
queen. 

But the Jesuits in whom he trusted led him astray ; and 
the man who had fought so gallantly at Leith against the 
Scots, became, under their guidance, one of Mary Stuart's 
staunchest friends. To wdiat reward for his services he 
looked we can only guess. Norfolk aspired to her hand ; 
why should not Northumberland? To the last Mary was 
a siren ; a being with the beaming eye, the wooing voice, 
which take the senses captive. But whether hope of piety 
led him on, Percy began to waver in his faith ; and the 
English council, who had spies in his closet, and knew what 
he was saying and doing, even in his private moments, 
commanded him, as an act of safety, to keep his house. 

This order, meant as a warning to him, was not strictly 
kej)t, since he was allowed to live at Sion, his princely seat 
on the Thames, and to ride down when he listed to Pet- 
worth, his fine estate on the Sussex downs. Yet chafed 
by a show of restraint, he listened more eagerly than ever 
to the temjDter's voice. The Jesuits who had gained his 
ear, soon made of him their tool. In what he thought the 
seclusion of his own gallery at Petworth, he held midnight 
interviews with Charles Paget, one of the most subtle and 
dangerous of the men employed by those who conducted 
the permanent conspiracy against their queen. Paget came 
over from Dieppe, landing on a lonely part of the Sussex 
coast ; where he met William Shelley, of Michelgrove, one 
of the Earl's Catholic friends ; and was housed by Percy 
in one of the lodges of Petworth Park. Here Thomas 
Lord Paget joined them; and in their cups the three 
Catholic gentlemen talked a good deal of nonsense about 
the Pope, the Due de Guise, and the Queen of Scots. Per- 
cy meant no harm. Had the Guises come over, he was 
likely enough to be the first afield against them ; but, like 



196 Her Majestijs Toicer. 

all the old Pcrcies, lie was a man of odious tem2:)er and 
imperious habit ; one who could ill endure to see such up- 
starts, as he called Hatton and Burghley, basking in royal 
favour, while barons of lofty lineage like himself were left 
in the shade. 

Much of his foolish prate with Paget and Shelley was 
woven by cunning hands into a net, which closed upon him 
when the time was ripe. To what extent, if any, he was 
guilty of actual treason we shall never learn ; his death cut 
short all process against him ; and the plausible story which 
was told by Ilatton after his murder must be taken with a 
good many grains of salt. 

One of the plotters, Francis Throckmorton, had by his own 
confession, done his worst to persuade the Due de Guise to 
throw an army into Kent. The arrest of that conspirator 
warned the braggarts of their danger; and Northumber- 
land persuaded Lord Paget to fly the realm. Lord Paget 
being the most eminent man who knew of his parley with 
the agents of disturbance, Percy supposed that his secret 
would be safe so soon as Paget was beyond the sea. But 
he found, to his dismay, how little his cunning could con- 
tend against Burghley's craft. Paget got away ; but the 
meshes were drawn about the humbler associates of his 
crime ; and when Percy, to his great astonishment, found 
himself lodged, under care of Sir Owen Hopton, in the 
Bloody tower, he heard that his friend Shelley was not only 
lodged in a neighbouring vault, but had already been made 
to confess his offences on the rack. Percy sent a message 
to Shelley, begging him to be firm ; to which the poor gen- 
tleman replied that it was easy for a great baron, protected 
by his nobility from torture, to advise him to be firm ; but 
lie, a country squire, had been twice on the rack, and he 
could not bear it. In fact, on being questioned once more, 
in the presence of Lord Chief Justice Anderson, as to the 



Murder of Northimiberland. 197 

coming and going of Jesuits, as to the lodging of agents in 
Petworth Park, as to the conversations held in the Earl's 
book-room, Shelley told what he knew, and perhaps more 
than he knew. Men stretched on the rack became pliant 
to the judge; answering in their pain as the questioner 
wished ; crying yea and nay, just as the cords were strained 
and the joints were torn. By Shelley's account, Charles 
Paget brought news to Petworth that the Pope had sanc- 
tioned a crusade against the Queen, that the Due de 
Guise would conduct the landing of foreign troops, and that 
the Church expected the Catholic barons to be ready. Shel- 
ley was made to confess that the Earl was a party to these 
schemes. Paget, in a letter to the Queen of Scots, denied 
the second part of Shelley's story. It was probably not 
true. Burghley made no efforts to bring Percy before the 
courts. A year passed by ; yet Percy remained under Ho2> 
ton's charge ; a prisoner, awaiting his trial by the peers. 
That trial he was not to have. 

On a summer Sunday noon (June 21, 1585) Hopton, the 
Lieutenant, received two orders from court ; the first to ar- 
rest the Earl's three servants — men who had always wait- 
ed on him — and to lodge them in close custody for the 
night ; the second, to place in the Bloody tower, as sole at- 
tendant on the Earl, one Thomas Bailiff, a gentleman, who 
brought the orders for that service. By two o'clock the 
new arrangements had been made. Palmer, Price, and Pan- 
tin, Percy's old servants, were caged in their own cells ; and 
Thomas Bailiff was housed in a room adjoining that in 
which the Earl ate and slept. 

When supper time came, Bailiff was at his post. At 
nine the Earl retired in his usual health. About twelve 
o'clock an old fellow, who lay in an outer room, heard Bail- 
iff shouting, and called the watch. On the watch coming 
up, Bailiff sent him to rouse the Lieutenant and beg him to 



198 Her Majestifs Toioer. 

come at once to the Earl of Northumberland's door. Hop- 
ton was soon there; and jjassing into the chamber found 
the Earl in bed, undressed, with his clothes in perfect order, 
and the bed-quilt decently drawn about his limbs. He was 
dead. 

On turning down the sheets Hoj)ton saw that the bed was 
full of blood ; that the body had a wound under the left 
breast, which seemed to have been made by a knife. He 
left the room tor a few minutes, locking Bailiff inside, while 
he wrote an accouiit of the Earl's death, which he described 
as having been caused by the plunge of a knife. When he 
returned to the chamber, Bailiff drew his eye to a pistol ly- 
ing on the floor, about three feet from the bed, which he 
had not seen before. 

Sir Christoj^her Hatton, who managed the whole affair, 
set up a theory that Percy, overwhelmed by those* proofs 
of his guilt which had been drawn from Shelley on the rack, 
had destroyed himself, in order to escape a trial, a traitor's 
doom, and the forfeiture of his family honours and estates. 
A theory of self-murder would not square with death by a 
knife, since three or four warders, who rushed into the room 
on the first alarm of foul play being raised, had seen the bed 
in which Percy lay a corpse. No man could stab himself 
to death, and then draw the sheets about his limbs, as they 
had been found in Percy's bed. But might he not take a 
pistol into his bed, fire it under the clothes, and die without 
a struggle? Such was Hatton's explanation of an event 
which filled the taverns of Cheapside and the aisles of St. 
Paul's with wonder and alarm. An inquest on the body, 
held by the Tower coroner, a mere court official, failed to 
appease the public mind. Thousands of tongues accused 
the council of foul play, and to put an end to these bruits 
in the City, the Government was compelled to act and to 
explain. Hatton's line was taken in the affair by Burghley. 



Murder of JSforthimiherlcmd. 199 

The first letter, in whicli Sir Owen spoke of tlie kyiife, was 
kept back. A Star Chamber Council was convened, at 
which the Lord Chancellor Bromley made a long statement 
of the Earl's offences, of his imprisonment, and of his sui- 
cide. Finally, a pamphlet was put forth, in order, as was 
said, to calm men's minds and to silence malicious tongues, 
in which Percy's servants were made to give evidence tend- 
ing to suggest that the Earl had meant to kill himself, while 
the tale told by Bailiff and Hopton was given in such a 
way as to show that he had carried out his plan. Pantin, 
it was said, confessed that the pistol belonged to his lord ; 
that it was bought from Adrian Mulan, a gunsmith, living 
in East Smithfield ; that Price, his fellow-servant, carried it 
into the Tower ; that the Earl concealed it in the chimney 
of his room ; but fearing it would be found in that place 
and taken away, he had slipt it into the mattress of his bed. 
Bailiff was made to say that when the Earl supped and sent 
him away that night, he came to the door and bolted it in- 
side, saying, he could not sleep unless his door was made 
fast. After that, said Bailiff, all was quiet until the hour 
of midnight, when he heard a great noise, as of a falling 
door, and springing out of bed, cried, * What is that, my 
lord T Finding the Earl made no answer, he went on call- 
ing and crying until the old fellow in the next room answer- 
ed him, when they called the watch, sent for Sir Owen, broke 
into the room by force, and found the Earl dead in his bed. 
In spite of all these assertions, folk would not believe 
that Percy died by his own hand. Hatton bore the odium 
of contriving a midnight murder ; for many years the event 
was spoken of as a political assassination ; and that by men 
who like Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Robert Cecil, knew 
every mystery of the court. 



200 -Ser Majesty's Tower, 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

PHILIP THE CONFESSOR. 

Over the fire-place in the common room of Beauchamp 
tower, once tenanted by the good Lord Cobham, by * King ' 
Guilford, by the last White Rose, and by Monsieur Charles 
the moralist and spy, the eye is taken by some faint and 
flowing lines, looking all the weaker from contrast with so 
many tablets of the stern and monumental kind. These are 
the words in Italian letters : — 

Qiianto plus afflictionis p7'0 Christo in hoc 
Sceculo^ tanto plus glorice cum Christo in 
futuro, Arundell Ju?ie 22 

1587. 

The author of this tablet was Philip Howard, called by 
his Jesuit biographer Philip the Confessor. 

This Philip Howard, a son of Thomas, fourth Duke of 
Norfolk, and Mary, sole heiress of Henry Fitz-Alan, twelfth 
Earl of Arundel, was born to wear the coronets of two great 
houses, and to enjoy the wealth of three great families. A 
King and Queen stood sponsors for him, and he was the 
heir to honours which Kings and Queens can neither give 
nor take away. His father was a son of Henry the Poet, 
who first gave musical pause and flow to our Saxon tongue. 
His son was the famous Marble Earl. So that Philip the 
Confessor, w^ho owed his name to a Spanish King, and his 
title to a Jesuit Father, stands side by side in story w^ith 
men -whose names will be gratefully recalled so long as 
the memory of song and art endures. 



Philip the Confessor. 201 

Philip the Confessor has a dim kind of fame ; first as a 
prisoner in the Tower ; next as a martyr for his faith. The 
Churcli of Rome has done much for Philip ; it vexes one to 
find how little he did for the Church of Rome. What was 
done for her glory in Philip's house, was accomplished, not 
by Philiji, but Dy his wife. 

Few wrong notions thrive so ranldy in our books as the 
popular delusion that these Howards of Norfolk, Arundel, 
and Surrey, have been strictly loyal, through good and evil 
times, to the universal Church. ISTo house in England has 
been so wayward in its faith. 

When the new lights began to burn in Church and State, 
no men received them with a warmer welcome than the 
Howards. Thomas, third Duke of Norfolk, stood in front 
of the affray with Rome. He was the uncle of Anne I3o- 
leyn. A great noble and a good soldier, he pushed forward 
the divorce, he denounced the Pope, he crushed the Pilgrim- 
age of Grace. The Poet, his son, was a Protestant, and 
more ; what in these times would be called a free-thinker. 
The Poet's son, Duke Thomas, had the name of a reformer, 
and even of a persecutor ; a name which the Jesuits who 
lived upon his son declare that he had only too well de- 
served. Philip, the fourth in descent since the new lights 
came in, was the first man of his house who went over from 
the English side to the side of Rome. He was Philip the 
Convert ; hence, while the Jesuits who won him over, styled 
him a Confessor, the kinsmen who lost him styled him, with 
equal justice, an Apostate. 

Since Philip's day the Howards have changed sides from 
father to son with a regularity to suggest the working of 
some natural law ; the mysterious force — it may be — which 
compels the vane on a high tower to flow in the path of a 
prevailing wind. Philip converted his youngest brother. 
Lord William, the Ruffler, who is known as Belted Will; 

T 2 



202 Her Majesty's Tower. 

but liis second brother, Lord Thomas, afterwards Earl of 
Suffolk, lived and died in the ranks of the National Church. 
The Poet's second son. Lord Henry, afterwards Earl of 
Northampton, boxed the compass ; being a Protestant in 
his youth, a trimmer in his middle life, a Catholic in his 
old age. So it has been throughout. Some of these How- 
ards have lapsed, some have relapsed ; from Philip's father, 
who turned Gregory Martin out of doors, down, through 
that Protestant Jockey of Norfolk, Avho was a friend of Fox, 
to Duke Henry, who in our own day gave up the church 
of his father for that of his Queen. 

Philip, like the men of his house, was inclined to bear 
no cross unless it were his own. In early life, he was so 
little of a saint and confessor, that his family dare not print 
the charges written against his name by one of his depend- 
ent priests. We are told by this priest, that Philip left 
his young wife, that he fell into debt, that he wandered 

after strange faces, that he then comes a suspicious 

blank. Philip would seem to have fallen under doubt of 
doing much worse things than following after damsels who 
were light of love. The Jesuit hints at the young Earl's 
vices, without telling us of what sort they were. We only 
know that Philip repented of them in his later and better 
days. When he was a prisoner in Beauchamp tower, he 
wrote to Father Southwell, the poet, that on going back into 
the world, as he then hoped, he would sell the rings and jew- 
els which had been given to him in his wicked youth by 
the companions of his dissolute hours, and send the money 
for which he sold these tokens of evil, to the poor. 'And 
so far was he ever after from such faults,' says the good 
priest, 'that he could, and upon just occasion did, protest 
in another letter to the same Father, that after he became 
a member of the Holy Catholic Church, he never once was 
guilty therein.' 



Philip the Confessor. 203 

Yet Philip was not so much a wicked man as a weak 
man. Anno Dacrc, the wife to whom he had been married 
for money when he was less than twelve years old, was a 
border lassie ; sister and heir of George, the last Lord Da- 
cre of the north ; a woman sour in face and sly in manner, 
but kind to the poor, and very obedient to lier church. 
Like all her neighbours in the north, she was a CatholiQ ; 
though she was crafty enough to hide her preference from 
her father-in-law, the Protestant Duke. She was older than 
the Earl, her husband. When the Protestant Duke was put 
to death for his part in the Bishop of Ross's plot, she drop- 
ped the mask which she had worn so long, and filled her 
house with Jesuits and priests. Then, Philip, her husband, 
ran away. 

A dull wife, with Father Southwell and a train of Jesuits 
in her chamber, was not to the mind of a boy who had all 
the gaieties of London within his reach. Anne loved the 
country, Philip loved the town. Anne preferred Arundel 
Park... and Castle, with the downs and sea; Philip preferred 
Arundel House and gardens, with the river and the Strand. 
Given up to her devotions, Anne would rise with the lark 
to sing her matins ; given up to his pleasures, Philip would 
lie in bed till noon, to sleep off the fumes of wine. Anne 
felt herself a better woman when her house was filled with 
priests. PliiHp ran away from his wife on account of these 
fellows, and he hated these fellows on account of his wife. 

At one time, things looked likely to go wrong, indeed, 
between man and wife; for Philip not only left Anne 
without his society, but talked of denouncing their mar- 
riage, as null and void. When he first stood at the altar 
with Anne he was under twelve. They were married again 
on Philip attaining his fourteenth year ; but Philip was told 
by some of his gay London comrades, that the second rite 
had no bindincj force. Disliking: the sour woman, and 



204 Her Majesty's Tower. 

hating her priests and Jesuits, he forbade her to lodge in 
his London house, even when he was out of town. But Anno 
clung to Philip, like his fate. She appealed to his higher 
nature and his better sense. She got his aged grandsire, 
the Earl of Arundel, and his rich aunt, the Lady Lumley, to 
interfere. These kinsfolk tried to reconcile the pair; so 
far at least as to persuade Philip to live with his wife under 
a common roof. Once they seemed to have brought him 
back to a sense of duty. He took his wife home, and in 
this interval of happy love, his son Thomas, afterwards 
famous as the Marble Earl, was born. But Philip could 
not stand the Jesuits, and rather than live a dull and decent 
life with them, he quarrelled with Lord Arundel and Lady 
Lumley; who were so deeply hurt by his cross humour, 
that they left away from him many a broad acre which ho 
had thought his own. 

For many years, there was a battle, as it were, between 
the church and the world, for this weak man's soul. 

Philip, now become Earl of Arundel, in his mother's right, 
resolved to shine in courts ; but on trial, he found how hard 
it was to fill men's eyes and engage their tongues in a circle 
adorned by courtiers like Leicester, Blount, and Raleigh. 
He tried to outbrave these gallants in the splendour of his 
tilts and tourneys. When the Queen went down to Ken- 
ning Hall, his seat in Norfolk, he invited, not only the 
court, but the shire, to meet her. From Kenning Hall, he 
carried tliis party of guests to Norwich; where the most 
reckless spendthrifts in the county stood amazed by the 
spectacle of his riot. Who could tell where he would stop ? 
Who could say what dreams were in his brain? Court- 
iers could see that he aspired to a favourite's place. The 
Queen, an unmarried woman, was of his kin. Women 
of his line had matched with kings, and men of his fam- 
ily had courted queens. His father had been accepted by 



Philip the Confessor. 205 

the Queen of Scots. Who could tell what fortune had in 
store ? 

Yet all his striving and expenditure were thrown away ; 
for Philip had neither the wit, the genius, nor the personal 
beauty necessary in a contest for favour with the men who 
sparkled in Elizabeth's coui't. In his costly banquets there 
was little art; in his splendid joustings there was still less 
taste. The Queen smiled at him, but not on him. When 
the last pistole in his purse was gone, he began to feel how 
wearisome were the pleasures which he had bought ; how 
childish the distinctions which he had won. Then, in his 
hour of debt and self-reproach, his wife came forward with 
her money and her love. She paid his debts ; she touched 
his heart; and she healed his wounds. From that moment 
the ruined spendthrift was her own. 

Once housed beneath her roof, with Father Southwell and 
Father Weston at his side, this son of a stern Protestant 
sire was soon reconciled to Rome. 

The Queen's Council, moved by hints of his lapse from 
the national Church, called up the Earl and Countess of 
Arundel ; both of whom denied that any such change had 
taken place. As a caution, they were parted from each 
other; Phihp being ordered to keep his house, while Anne 
was lodged with Sir Thomas and Lady Shirley at Wiston, 
near Steyning. But in a few months, on the noise of their 
apostasy dying down, they were restored to each other's 
arms. If they had kept within the law, and avoided public 
scandal, they would henceforward have been left in peace ; 
but such a course of life would not have suited the weak 
Earl's spiritual guides. 

Philip was much in the hands of Father Grately, a priest 
whom Cardinal Allen had sent over to advise him how to 
act his difficult part. Grately was one of those poor fools 
who fancy that men are ruled by secret signs and private 



206 Her Majesty's Tower. 

tokens. He confided to the Earl as a great mystery, that 
hlack is white; telling him that this secret token was to be 
a bond between them for ever, like the ring between a man 
and wife. This foolish Father Grately had a corresjDondent 
in Paris called Father Gifford, to whom he wrote a full ac- 
count of what was going on. Father Gifford was a spy, 
who sold these secrets of the closet and the confessional for 
gold. By his means Secretary Walsingham was made aware 
of every word spoken in the privacy of the Earl's closet, 
while Philip supposed that his inmost thoughts were known 
to none save Grately and himself. 

No wonder that Philip found few openings for his tal- 
ents, and that Elizabeth's court was closed against him ! At 
length the silly youth resolved to quit a country in which 
he found no field — to seek an asylum in the provinces of his 
godfather Philip the Second, and to offer himself as a leader 
to the discontented exiles and partizans of Pome. 

If he did not carry out his scheme at once, it was because 
some of the Jesuits whom he met in his wife's apartments 
were honest men. These Fathers wanted him to serve their 
church ; and, in order to serve their church, it was needful 
for him to live a decent life. Father Weston, who received 
his submission, told him he must live by Catholic rule as 
well as swear by CathoHc dogma. Here was the cross. In 
those days PhiHp had no religious scruples to overcome ; he 
had read nothing, and he kncAV nothing ; but he was vain 
and frivolous, fond of dice and drink, a slave of tavern sluts. 
He could not give up all these things at once. But he rode 
down more frequently to Arundel Castle ; he read the 
tracts of Cardinal Allen and Father Southwell ; and he made 
such progress in spiritual knowledge that, on meeting his 
brother, William — Belted Will Howard — he talked that 
Puffier over to the Pope ! 

The brothers agreed to start from England without the 



Philip the Confessor. 207 

Queen's license — a grave offence in men of their rank ; but 
they could reckon on receiving a very warm welcome from 
King Philip of Spain, who was busy with his grand Armada, 
and would be glad to find two Plantagenet gentlemen, sons 
of the great Protestant duke, in his court and camp. Who 
could tell ? Philip had claims to the Crown ; the blood of 
Edward the First was in his veins ; and the arms of Edward 
the Confessor were on his shield. Such a man might be 
turned to many uses by a prince so subtle and unscrupulous 
as Philip the Second, even before the time should come for 
launching his navies against the English Queen. 

But the Jesuits felt that such a scheme, even though it 
had Cardinal Allen's sanction, would be more to the advan- 
tage of Spain than of Rome. Philip could be more useful 
to the Church in London than in Brussels. His great name, 
his high rank, and his vast estates, conferred upon him a 
power of encouraging and protecting missionary priests, 
which would be thrown away the moment he landed on a 
foreign soil. They tried to dissuade him; but he would 
not now draw back. A weak man is always afraid of seem- 
ing weak. He knew his own mind. He had weighed the 
business well. He had hired a boat to carry him into France. 
The skipper knew of his design ; and not to go when his 
friends expected him, would be to prove that he was still a 
child. The Countess, who was on the side of her priest, 
implored him at least to take her with him when he fled : 
since she could neither bear a second parting from her lord, 
nor face the terrible anger of her Queen. Philip would not 
listen ; he would sail for Calais ; and he would sail alone. 

When he got a fair wind, and put out to sea at dusk, the 
skipper who had bargained to take him over for so many 
pistoles, hung out a light ; on which they were suddenly as- 
sailed with shot by a ship of war, commanded by Captain 
Keloway, whom Philip supposed to be a pirate. Keloway, 



208 Her Majestxjs Tower. 

acting the part of pirate, boarded the boat, saw the Earl, 
and asked him whither he was going ? Philip, who never 
suspected that his captor was acting under orders from 
AYalsingham, replied that he was bound for Calais. Kelo- 
way, playing the part of pirate, told him he should go free 
for one hundred pounds ; for which sum he must give his 
note of hand to some confidential friend on shore. Philip 
sat down and wrote a letter to his sister. Lady Margaret 
Sackville, begging her to ask Father Grately to pay the 
bearer of his note one hundred pounds by this token that 
was betwixt them — that black is lohite. The pretended pi- 
rate took the letter, read it closely, put it in his pocket ; and 
then, turning sharply on the writer, told him that he was no 
pirate, but a public officer, who had been apj^ointed to lie in 
wait for him at sea, to take him in the act of breaking the 
law, and to bring him back by force to land. 

On the 25th of April, 1585, the fugitive Earl was brought 
into the Tower. His brother. Belted Will, and his sister, 
Lady Margaret, were put under arrest, and his v>'ife's cou' 
fessor, Father Weston, was flung into the Clink. 



CHAPTER XXVm. 

MASS IN THE TO WEE 



The Countess Anne, so far from being overthrown by 
this night adventure of her husband, felt her wit fired, and 
her strength increased, for that conflict with the world in 
which she was now to engage alone. 

Her first thoughts were for Father Weston, whom she 
missed from her side even more than she missed her way- 
ward lord. Putting on a poor habit, so that she could 
walk about the City unnoted, she Avent down to the Stews, 



Mass in the Toioer. 209 

a vilo neighbourhood in Southwark ; in which stood the 
Clink prison, the Bear Garden, the licensed dens from 
which the quarter took its name, and those inn-yards in 
which wandering friars were wont to show the Burning 
of Sir John Oldcastle and the Temptation of Eve. Play- 
houses like the Hope and the Globe had routed these old 
monkish dramas from the tavern yards ; but many of the 
dens which in olden times had been licensed by the clergy 
still remained under the walls of Winchester house ; though 
the signs which had once told the story of their origin too 
plainly, such as the Cardinal's Hat, the Three Kings, and 
the Cross Keys, had been removed by the reforming clergy 
as too scandalous for the public eye. 

The Clink jail in this district was tenanted by drabs and 
thieves, by pirates and monks ; by the vilest scum of the 
river, and the filthiest sweej)ing of the street. Being a 
clerical prison, it was sometimes made a lodging for men 
of a better class ; most of all for men arrested on suspicion 
of being Jesuits and priests. Hence, Father Weston, a 
prisoner of the Bishop of Winchester, was thrown into 
this loathsome den. 

In her disguise, the Countess went among the stews, 
made friends of the Clink turnkeys, and tried to corrupt 
them by her gold. Her hope was to get the Father into 
France ; and if bribes could have bought his freedom, he 
could certainly have got away. Thomas Cowper was then 
Bishop of Winchester, and Cowj^er's men proved loyal to 
their trust. They told the Countess, that Weston was not 
confined for money, and would never gain his liberty 
through money. They spoke the truth. Anne was sur- 
prised ; her experience having taught her to believe in the 
power of gold to corrupt men's souls. When Father 
Blackwell, the arch-priest, was hiding in a house in Sussex, 
orders to search for him came down from London ; and the 



210 " Iler 3£cijesty'^s Tower. 

Father was in peril, not so much of discovery, as of hun- 
ger and thirst ; since the watch kept over all the family- 
was close enough to prevent any one from going into his 
secret cell. Anne rode over to the house ; asked to see 
the captain in a private room ; and, by means of a great 
bribe, persuaded him to connive at the arch-priest's escape. 
Blackwell was brought to her own house ; and the captain 
received from her ladyship a venison pasty every Christ- 
mas day so long as he lived. At the Clink, she had to do 
with officers of the Church ; and in spite of her disguises 
and allurements. Father Weston was confined in the Clink 
until the end of Elizabeth's reign. 

Philip, brought before the Star Chamber, was charged 
with three offences; (1) with an attempt to leave England 
without the loyal license"; (2) with going over from the 
Church of his country to that of Rome ; (3) with having 
proposed that a foreign prince should create him Duke of 
Korfolk. These charges he partly evaded, partly denied. 
The attempt to escape into France could not be gainsaid ; 
but he asked the judges to believe that he had no purpose 
in view beyond getting away from his personal foes. The 
apostasy from his church he denied in substance, if not in 
form ; saying, it was true that he had confessed his sins to 
a priest, but that in other things he was not reconciled to 
Rome. The proposal, made to Cardinal Allen, that he 
should be raised to the rank of Duke, he denied in terms. 

The court, believing the evidence against him on all 
three points, and on two out of the three there could be no 
room for doubt, condemned him to imprisonment during 
pleasure, and to a fine of ten thousand pounds. 

The Countess was left at large, though she was occasion- 
ally brought before the judges and questioned as to her 
household. Backed by her Jesuits, she was a match in 
the cunning and knavery of police for Walsingham him- 



3fass in the Toioer. 211 

self. As the Earl was not a felon, his estates were spared ; 
and while Anne had plenty of money in her purse, she 
knew a hundred ways in which justice could be baffled 
and her enemies put to shame. 

For more than a year the Earl's confinement in the mid- 
dle room of Beauchamp tower was rather close. A gen- 
tleman was appointed as his keeper, and when he walked in 
the garden for exercise, either this keeper or the Lieutenant 
was bound to walk at his side. After awhile he was al- 
lowed to have servants of his own ; but these fellows were 
of little use, since they sickened of the Tower, and wanted 
more indulgence than their lord. Roger, the Lieutenant's 
man, was the chief person in his room. 

The steady old Catholics were not gained over by the 
Earl, and some of them expressed for him all the contempt 
which *his weakness provoked. One Catholic priest said 
Arundel had no religion at all ; another said he was weak 
enough to hear mass of a morning and sermon of an after- 
noon. Many of the priests declared that he pretended 
conversion to their church out of policy. But for the 
Countess Anne they held another speech. She was a Da- 
cre of the North ; and those Dacres of the North had been 
always staunch and true. 

Anne made many brave efforts to see her husband in 
the Tower. If the Council would have let her, she would 
have taken up her quarters in his room, and made that 
room the base for fresh attacks upon her Queen. It could 
not be. The time was too restless, Anne too clever, for 
such indulgence to be offered. But the Countess under- 
stood that it was the plotter, not the wife, who was denied 
admission to the Tower. Other ladies were let in, while 
she was sent away. 

Then a wild thought came into her head — a woman's 
thought, full of daring and of peril, which pleased her 



212 Her Majestifs Tower. 

fancy, and of which she did not pause to count the cost. 
If she could not carry to her lord the comforts of her own 
presence, she could provide him with the consolations of 
his own religion. Yea, if such thing could be contrived 
by woman's wit, and paid for by the Dacre purse, there 
should be mass in his room ; yea, there should be mass 
under the Queen's nose, in the midst of her chains and 
bolts, her guns and pikes, her generals and councillors; 
yea, in that year of the Armada, when the Spanish infant- 
ry were jumping on shore in Kent and Essex, there should 
be mass in the Queen's palace, mass for their success in 
Her Majesty's Tower ! 

Anne never paused to ask what influence such a fact 
might have upon her lord. She knew that he would do 
her will. She may have hoped to make his fortune and 
to save his soul. For she reckoned, as all her Jesuits reck- 
oned, that the Spaniards who were arriving would win the 
fight ; that London would fall as Antwerp had fallen ; and 
that England would become the Flanders of her race. 

In the Belfry, which communicates with Beauchamp 
tower, by the gallery known as the Prisoners' walk, lay in 
those days an old priest named William Bennet ; a man 
who had changed his religion more than once ; and who 
was now, in hope of the Spanish invasion, a very warm 
Catholic. Lady Arundel went to Mistress Hopton, daugh- 
ter of Sir Owen the Lieutenant, and Avith a bribe of thirty 
pounds induced that young lady to leave oj)en the gate in 
Prisoners' walk so as to allow of Father Bennet passing 
into the Earl's room unseen. The first point was gained — 
Philip had obtained the services of a priest. A rude altar 
was now raised, a chalice obtained, a garment for the priest 
sent in, with all the things required in celebrating mass. 
Philip invited Sir Thomas Gerard of Lancashire, and Wil- 
liam Shelley of Sussex, Catholic prisoners then in the Tow- 



Mass in the Tower. 213 

er, to his chamber, which was now in their eyes a chapel. 
To the old tablet over the fire-place, he added in the same 
liowing Italian letter : 

Gloria et honore euni coronasti domine 
in memoria ceterna erit Justus. 

When the two Catholic gentlemen were come in, and the 
doors closed. Father Bennet began a mass for the success 
of Spain ; Philip doing duty as an acolyte, and the other 
gentlemen kneeling and taking part. 

Nor was this act the worst of which Philip was guilty 
in the Tower. "While the Spanish ships were in the Chan- 
nel, he instituted a prayer for their success, which was 
to continue day and night without ceasing, among all the 
Catholic prisoners in the Tower, and among all their friends 
outside, until the Spaniards had shot down London bridge. 
At this time Philip was in high spirits. He fancied he 
would soon be King, and he promised Father Bennet that 
his first act of royal grace should be to make him Dean of 
St. Paul's. 

The year of the grand Armada passed away. Before it 
Avas yet gone, Hatton had been down to the Tower inquir- 
ing into the truth. That men of English race might differ 
in opinion as to the real presence in the bread and wine, 
was credible. That men of English race should ofier up 
prayers for an enemy on our shores, was incredible. Yet 
the evidence which Hatton found of that monstrous deed 
was overwhelming. Father Bennet turned on his employ- 
er. Sir Thomas Gerard betrayed his friend. William 
Shelley, after some .suffering, told his secret. It was noAV 
a question of high treason ; of the basest kind of high 
treason ; and the poor Catholic gentlemen who had sins of 
their own enough, were only too prompt in throwing all 
blame upon the Earl. If the Spaniards had won their 



214 Her Majestifs Toicer, 

prize, the men who liad said mass for them in Her Majesty's 
Tower would have been heroes in the Sj^aniard's court. 
The Spaniards had not won their prize ; and these gentle- 
men could only save their lives by keen alacrity in accusing 
each other of their common crime. 

Philip was tried in the ensuing spring for high treason. 
Bennet and Gerard were the chief witnesses against him, 
and the lords had no choice but to condemn him. Anne 
was not arrested. It is possible that her part in the busi- 
ness was unknown ; we only know it from the revelations 
of her Jesuit biographer ; in whose eyes her corruption of 
the Lieutenant's daughter by a purse of thirty pounds was 
a meritorious act. She was left at large ; though she suf- 
fered, of course, from the loss of her husband's property. 

The Queen could not make up her mind to take Philip's 
life. On the trial, Burghley gave him a last chance of ac- 
quittal, by asking whether he held that the Pope could de- 
pose the Queen ? He would not answer. Would he de- 
fend the Queen against a foreign prince ? Yes. Would he 
defend her, asked Hunsdon, against the Pope ? To this 
question he would give no answer, yea or nay. Then the 
Earl of Derby, as Lord High Steward, pronounced on him 
the sentence of death. 

The day after his sentence, he wrote two letters in the 
Beauchamp tower ; one to the Lord Chancellor, the other 
to Father Southwell. In the first, he made humble suit to 
the Queen, that Her Majesty would graciously forgive him 
the many offences which he had committed against her, 
and for which he expressed his hearty sorrow. In the sec- 
ond, he explained to the Jesuit Father, that his letter to 
the Queen was written in an equivocal sense. It was plain 
that his letter to the Lord Chancellor would be read as ex- 
pressing a hearty sorrow for his crimes; but he wished 
Southwell to know that this was not the true meaning of 



3£ass in the Tower. 215 

what he wrote. He wanted his spiritual guide to under- 
stand that he was not sorry for his public oflences against 
his country ; but that he was sorry for any trifling annoy- 
ance which he might have caused Her Majesty during his 
many years of service in her court ! This was the moral 
of his token, that black is white. 

What could be done with a man so feeble and so sub- 
tle ? Leave him alone, tliought the Queen. Enough of the 
Howard blood had fallen ; the blood of stronger and bet- 
ter men than Philip. Duke Thomas, his sire, had died be- 
neath the axe. Earl Henry, his grandsire,.had died beneath 
the axe. Philip's crimes were blacker and baser than their 
offences ; but these men had been dangerous and he was 
not dangerous. Thus the Queen's decision was that he 
should not die. 

Then began the better part of Philip's life, the only part, 
indeed, on which a man of any creed can now look back 
with pity. Left alone in Beauchamp tower, he laid down 
a plan of living to God, according to his church, which he 
carried out in a way which takes the heart even while it 
provokes a smile. The two points of his duty were— how 
to pray and how to fast. 

As to the first, he divided his day into three parts ; morn- 
ing, afternoon, and evening. In the morning he gave up 
two hours to prayer; in the afternoon, he gave up one 
hour and a half; and in the evening, he gave a quarter of 
an hour to severe examination of his conscience. But, this 
arrangement did not satisfy him long ; and, being troubled 
in his mind about the worldliness of his life, he added to 
his devotions a recital of the priestly office. 

As to the second, he began, immediately after his con- 
demnation, to fast three days in the week ; Monday, Wed- 
nesday, and Friday ; on which days he would touch neither 
fish nor flesh. When his health gave way under this stern 



216 Her Majesty's Tower. 

rule, he altered it, so far as to eat flesh once on Monday, 
and fish once on Wednesday. He gave up wine ; though 
he took a little metheglin for his stomach's sake. On the 
day of his sentence he felt so wasted that he was induced 
to have a little supper in his room. On certain feasts of 
his church, as on the vigil of the Feast of Corpus Christi, 
of Ascension Day, and of the Virgin, he would touch nei- 
ther food nor drink. Yet this strict rule was carried out 
in such sly and serpentine ways, that the new Lieutenant, 
Sir Michael Blount, and the keepers appointed by the 
Queen, never heard of his fasts and prayers. 

Philip engaged a man of enormous appetite to wait upon 
him. When the viands were brought into his room and 
laid upon the table, his servants were sent out, and the 
door was shut fast ; then, the man with enormous appe- 
tite fell upon the dishes and tankards; ate up the meats, 
tossed oif the wines ; clearing the trenchers of their con- 
tents, just as when Arundel dined on ordinary days. 

Philip was proud of the tablet which he had written 
over the fireplace, and he not only stood before it for hours 
at a time, repeating the pious phrase : 

Qiianto plus afflictionis pro Christo in hoc sceculo^ 
Tanto plus glorice cum Christo in futicro, 

but pointed the words out to his servants and visitors for 
their remembrance when he should be no more. One of 
his chief sorrows as a prisoner was the news which came 
to him in Beauchamp tower, that his wife's confessor and 
his own correspondent. Father Southwell, was arrested, 
tried, condemned, and hung. 

Philip lingered on, in his ascetic way, for ten years, and 
died at length of a roasted teal. Long fasting had so 
slackened his powers, that the roast teal brought on a cast, 
which ended in dysentery. Of course, some voices cried 



Sir Walter Ealeigh. 217 

out poison, and his old servant Nicholas Rainberde, was 
accused of having bribed his cook to put poison in the 
dish. Rainberde had some quarrel with his lord about 
money. But the rumour of foul play soon died the death 
of all noxious things. When Philip was dying, Sir Mi- 
chael Blount, the Lieutenant, came to his bedside and asked 
his forgiveness for any offence which he might have given 
him in discharging his duties. * Do you ask forgiveness ?' 
said Philip. ' Why, then I forgive you in the same sort 
as I desire myself to be forgiven at the hands of God.' 
The two men grasped each other's hands. But then the 
Earl, weak and wayward to the last, rose on his pillow 
and looking Blount in the face, cried, * You have showed 
me and my men very hard measures.' * Wherein, my 
lord ?' asked the surprised Sir Michael. ' Nay,' said the 
Earl, * I will not make a recapitulation of anything .... 
Remember, good Mr. Lieutenant, that God, who with his 
finger turneth the unstable wheel of this variable world, 
can in the revolution of a few days bring you to be a pris- 
oner also, and to be kept in the same place where now you 
keep others.' 

The Jesuits say it was a prophetic voice. Certainly, 
the Earl had not been dead two months before Sir Michael 
Blount had lost his place, and was himself a prisoner in 
Beauchamp tower. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

The most eminent and interesting prisoner ever lodged 
in the Tower is Raleigh ; eminent by his personal genius, 
interesting from his political fortune. Raleigh has in 

K 



218 Her Majesty's Tower. 

higher degree than any other captive who fills the Tower 
with story, the distinction that he was not the prisoner of 
his country, but the prisoner of Spain. 

Many years ago I noted in the State Papers evidence, 
then unknown, that a very great part of the second and 
long imprisonment of the founder of Virginia was spent 
in the Bloody tower and the adjoining Garden house; 
writing at this grated window ; working in the little gar- 
den on which it opened ; pacing the terrace on this wall, 
which was afterwards famous as Raleigh's Walk. Hither 
came to him the wits and poets, the scholars and inventors 
of his time ; Jonson and Burrell, Hariot and Pett ; to crack 
light jokes ; to discuss rabbinical lore ; to sound the depths 
of philosophy ; to map out Virginia ; to study the ship- 
builder's art. In the Garden house he distilled essences 
and spirits; compounded his great cordial; discovered a 
method (afterwards lost) of turning salt water into sweet ; 
received the visits of Prince Henry ; wrote his political 
tracts ; invented the modern war-ship ; wrote his History 
of the World. 

Many other vaults and cells in the Tower assume the 
glory of having been Raleigh's home; the hole in Little 
Ease, the recess in the crypt, Martin tower, Beauchamp 
tower; but these assumptions find no warrant in actual 
fact. Raleigh lay in the Tower four several times, and in 
his third and fourth imprisonments his room was changed ; 
but we know his exact resting-place in each of these trials. 
During his first restraint he was lodged in the Brick tower, 
the residence of his cousin. Sir George (afterwards Lord) 
Carew, Master of the Ordnance. During his second re- 
straint he was lodged in the Bloody tower. During his 
third restraint he was lodged in the same ; until, on ac- 
count of failing health, he was suffered to change that cell 
for the Garden house in which Latimer had lain. In his 



/Sir Walter Raleigh. 219 

fourth restraint, after the Guiana voyage, he was lodged 
in the Wardrobe tower, until the last change of all occur 
red, when he was transferred to the topmost room of his 
first prison, the Brick tower. 

He was never lodged in the dark hole of the erypt, now 
shown and figured as Raleigh's cell. 

In a pleasant room of Durham house, in the Strand, — a 
room overhanging a lovely garden, with the river, the old 
bridge, the towers of Lambeth Palace, and the flags of 
Paris Garden and the Globe in view, — three men may have 
often met and smoked a pipe in the days of Good Queen 
Bess, who are dear to all readers of English blood ; because, 
in the first place, they were the highest types of our race 
in genius and in daring ; in the second place, because the 
work of their hands has shaped the whole after-life of their 
countrymen in every sphere of enterprise and thought. 

That splendid Durham house, in which the nine days' 
queen had been married to Guilford Dudley, and which 
had afterwards been the town house of Elizabeth, belonged 
to Sir Walter Raleigh, by whom it was held on lease from 
the Queen. Raleigh, a friend of William Shakspeare and 
the players, was also a friend of Francis Bacon and the 
philosophers. Raleigh is said to have founded the Mer- 
maid Club; and it is certain that he numbered friends 
among the poets and players. The proofs of his having 
known Shakspeare, though indirect, are strong. Of his 
long intercourse with Bacon every one is aware. 

Thus, it requires no efibrt of the fancy to picture these 
three men as lounging in a window of Durham house, 
pufllng the new Indian weed from silver bowls, discussing 
the highest themes in poetry and science, while gazing on 
the flower-beds and the river, the darting barges of dame 
and cavalier, and the distant pavilions of Paris Garden and 
the Globe. 



220 Her Majesty's Tower. 

With the exception of his two friends, Raleigh has had 
more books written about him than any other man of En- 
glish race. Every new generation begins with unslacken- 
ing curiosity about this proud and brilliant man, — curiosity 
as to what he was, what he said, and what he wrought. Men 
who are yet young have seen a dozen new lives of Ra- 
leigh ; and men who are now old may live to see many 
more. 

This public interest in Raleigh seems, at first thought, 
strange. The man was not lovable; he had some bad 
qualities ; his career was apparently a failure. Yet Ra- 
leigh is one of the undoubted heroes of English story ; one 
of the men about whom authors love to write and the pub- 
lic delight to read. 

The reasons for what seems at first sight a contradiction 
are not far to seek. 

In the first place, every one feels that Raleigh^ when all 
has been said against him, was a 'man; a proud man, if 
you like ; nay, a cruel and selfish man, if you insist ; yet a 
vital force in the city, in the court, in the camp ; not a 
form, a phrase, a convention, as the masses of men are and 
must be in every age and in every place. You may like 
an original force in your midst, or you may dislike it ; most 
men distrust a power which disturbs them with a sense of 
the untried and the unknown ; but you cannot help being 
drawn towards such a force for either love or hate. Ra- 
leigh was a man ; and what a man ! Even among a race 
of giants to what a size he grew ! Other men, when we 
come to them, may be great in parts ; this man was great 
in all parts. From the highest masters in special arts he 
had nothing to learn. Spenser could not teach him song. 
Hatton was danced by him out of court and fortune. 
Burghley feared his subtlety and craft. Mayerne took 
lessons from him in physic. Jonson consulted him on 



Sir Walter Ealeigh. 221 

dramatic art. Effingham praised him as a sailor. Bacon 
thought it an honour to contend with him for the prize of 
eloquence. Hawkins, Frobisher, all the adventurous sea- 
men of his generation, looked upon him as their master. 
Bilson retired from a tussle with him on theology, admit- 
tins: his defeat. Pett learned from Raleigh how to build 
ships. No man of his generation offered to compete with 
him as a writer of English prose. Even in the trifle of per- 
sonal beauty few were his equals. Poet, student, soldier, 
sailor, courtier, orator, historian, statesman — m each and 
every sphere he seemed to have a special power and a sep- 
arate life. 

In the second place, Raleigh is still a power among us ; 
a power in the Old World and in the New World ; hardly 
less visible in England than in America, where the beauti- 
ful capital of a chivalrous nation bears his name. Raleigh's 
public life was spent in raising England to her true rank ; 
and the mode by which he sought to raise her was by 
making her the mother of Free States. 

In Raleigh's time the leading influence on this planet 
lay in Spain ; an influence which was hostile to England in 
every way ; hostile to her religion, hostile to her commerce, 
hostile to her liberty, hostile to her law. Spain continued 
to assume that the English were a God-abandoned people, 
whom it was her sacred duty to chastise and save. She 
sent her spies and bravos into London. She landed her 
troops in Connaught. By her gold and by her craft she 
raised up enemies against our peace beyond the Scottish 
border and in the Low Country camps. Even when her 
policy was that of peace, she drove our ships from the 
ocean and cast our sailors into prison. She closed the 
Levant against our merchants, and forbade all intercourse 
of England with America. Every foe of this country found 
in her a friend. She sharpened the dirks of Babington and 



222 Her Majesty's Tower. 

his crew. She stirred up Rome against us. When she could 
not fight, she never ceased to plot. If the Irish kernes 
rebelled, she flung her troops into Cork ; regular troops, 
who fought under her banner ; and only disavowed them 
when they failed. In brief, at all times, in all places, our 
fathers had to count with Spain as their most deadly foe. 

Against that country Raleigh set his teeth. It was 
Spain which he braved in Guiana ; which he humiliated 
at Cadiz ; which he outwitted in Virginia. Towards Spain 
the most splendid Englishman ever born nursed the hos- 
tile passion which Hannibal fed against Rome. In the 
end, a great country wears out a great man ; and, after 
fighting Spain for forty years, fighting her with the sword 
and with the pen, Raleigh was murdered, at the command 
of Philip the Third, in Palace Yard. 

Raleigh's life divides itself into three main periods : the 
first period ending with his seduction of Bessie Throgmor- 
ton, the Queen's Maid of Honour ; the second period with 
his arrest by Cecil, on a charge of conspiring to raise Ara- 
bella Stuart to the throne ; the third period with his exe- 
cution in Palace Yard, on the demand of his great enemy, 
Philip the Third. Sunshine floods the first ; tempests beat 
the second ; gloom enwraps the third. 

Raleigh's first detention in the Tower, which can scarce- 
ly be called an imprisonment, was caused by his afiair with 
Bessie Throgmorton, one of the stars of Queen Elizabeth's 
court. Bessie was lovely, witty, and an orphan. All the 
gay lordlings of the court admired her. Tall, slender, fair, 
with light blue eyes and golden hair, she was a perfect 
contrast to Raleigh, whose dark and saturnine beauty half 
repelled while it strangely allured the beholder's eye. 
Bessie listened to his words, as shepherdesses listen to their 
Bwains in those pastoral tales which were only too much 
in vosrue. 



ISir Walter Raleigh, 223 

As at noon Dulcina rested 
In her sweet and shady bower, 
Came a shepherd ... 

the like of whom has seldom tempted woman to ner sorrow. 

He was no lout with bill and crook ; but a shining youth, 

bright with the sun and tawny with the sea. Spenser has 

pictured him in glowing verse. * The Shepherd of the 

Ocean ' he was dight ; but the softer arts were all to him 

like the sciences of the sea. He knew them all; and most, 

as Spenser writes, he knew the seducing phrase of love. 

Full sweetly tempered is that muse of his, 
That can empierce a prince's mighty heart. 

Dulcina listened to his lays, and whispering tongues soon 
bore the news of her deception to the Queen. 

Elizabeth was deeply hurt ; not, as the triflers say, be- 
cause Raleigh deserted her side for that of a younger 
beauty ; but because he sullied her court and wronged his 
own manhood by scandalous amour^ To Bessie, her orphan 
maid of honour, the Queen was like a mother ; and friends 
at court sent word to Raleigh, who was then at Chatham, 
making ready for a voyage, that he would have to stay at 
home and. wed a wife. The lover laughed over words 
which he received as an idle threat. ' Marry,' he cried, 
' there is none on the face of the earth that I will be fasten- 
ed unto.' But the Queen was not a woman to forgive him 
such a deed ; and when he slipt away to sea in the Garland^ 
hoping to fall in with the Spanish silver fleet, and come 
home crowned with glory and rich with spoil, she sent Sir 
Martin Frobisher in her swift pinnace, the Dlsdai7i, to fetch 
him back. 

Given in charge to his cousin, Sir George Carew, Master 
of the Ordnance, he lived in the spacious Brick tower, 
Carew's official residence, until he married the maid of 
honour, when he left his prison with the young and lovely 



224 Iler Majesty^s Tower. 

woman, who was at once Lis brightest glory and his dark- 
est shame. Much of the grace of life departed from Raleigh 
when Bessie was deceived. Repentance came ; but came 
too late. The Queen appeared to forgive him; but the 
outrage lived in her heart ; and Raleigh never became for 
her again the hero of his spotless prime. 

On the coming in of James the First, Raleigh returned 
to his imprisonment in a new cause ; to suffer in which 
was worthy of even his fame and genius. He came back 
to the Tower a sacrifice for his native land. 

The new king had a policy of his own, of which amity 
with Spain was the corner-stone. 

James had the strange disease, so rare in Scottish men, 
of physical cowardice. He was not tender of heart ; he 
was, in fact, so fond of seeing pain that he more than once 
came down to the Tower, that he might feast his eyes on 
broken joints and quivering flesh ; yet his life was spent 
in one long spasm of personal fear. He fainted at the sight 
of a drawn sword ; he trembled at the roar of saluting 
guns ; the name of a renowned warrior filled him with su- 
perstitious dread. On this base weakness, the adversaries 
of his country worked. They filled his mind with pictures 
of secret poisoners and assassins ; so that his dreams be- 
came hot with visions of Jesuits and conspirators ; and his 
soul was cowed by phantoms, taking the shape of agile 
and unscrupulous men, who from the vantage-ground of a 
distant court could either drop arsenic into his wine, or 
sharpen against him a bravo's knife. 

James found by private question, that he could have 
peace with Philip the Third on one condition : ruin of the 
man who had sworn undying enmity to Spain, and to all 
that Spain then represented in the world. As a first step 
towards peace, he was told that Raleigh must be thrown 
into the Tower. 



Sir Walter Baleigh. 225 

In his second restraint, Raleigh was ^not lodged in a 
kinsman's house, but in the more courtly and ominous 
Bloody tower ; under the immediate eyes of Sir John Pey- 
ton, the Lieutenant ; a man whose zeal in the new King's 
service was quickened by hints that in case of Raleigh's 
ruin he might receive, as his share of the spoil, the gov^ 
ernorship of Jersey, one of the many high offices which his 
prisoner held. How Peyton was to earn this guerdon we 
can only guess ; but more than one great councillor was 
known to have said that the King's coming in would be 
Raleigh's doom. 

The confinement was close and the treatment mean. 
Cecil told the world that Raleigh's lodgings in the Tower 
were as pleasant as the rooms in Durham house ; but the 
Lieutenant's weekly bills tell a different tale. He had 
only two small chambers ; only two servants were allowed 
him ; and the charge for diet, coals and candles, for his 
household, was four pounds a-week. 

The pretext for his seizure was a parley which he had 
held with Lord Cobham on affairs of state. Cobham was 
a disappointed man. Most of his kinsfolk were in office. 
His brother-in-law. Sir Robert Cecil, was the first Secretary 
of State ; his father-in-law, Effingham, Lord Admiral ; his 
wife's cousin. Lord Henry Howard, a Privy Councillor; 
yet his own great talents were thrust aside. An idea 
struck him, that he could bring himself into notice by 
espousing the claim of Arabella Stuart to the throne ; in 
favour of which claim he felt sure that he could count on 
Spain. This project he broached to Raleigh, who laughed 
in his face as a dreamer ; and that light laugh sent Raleigh 
to the Tower— as an accomplice in the Arabella Plot ! 

K2 



226 Her Majesty's Tower o 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE ARABELLA PLOT. 

DuEiNG the first three months of James's reign a very- 
sharp struggle for power took place ; the men in office 
wishing to keep in, the men out of office trying to get in. 
Cecil, Howard, Effingham, were in ; Raleigh, Cobham, 
Northumberland, were out. Those who were in were the 
men of peace ; those who were out were the men of war. 
Each party accused the other of foul play, of setting up 
pretenders, of intriguing with foreign courts. The men 
in power had the great advantage over their rivals of 
material strength ; of having in their control the fleet, the 
guards, the bench, the Tower, and the block. 

A dozen mad schemes were known to be on foot ; any 
one of which might be called a plot, should Sir Robert 
Cecil see cause to arrest a friend. Cobham was prattling 
of Arabella. Percy was sulking at Sion. Grey wanted 
favours for the Puritans. Watson and Clarke, two sem- 
inary priests, were eager to serve the Pope. Copley, one 
of Cecil's spies, who lived in the best Catholic society, 
kept his master informed of all these movements ; so that 
when Cecil struck his blow, the Tower was pretty nigh 
filled with victims ; among whom he counted Sir Walter 
Raleigh, Lord Cobham, Lord Grey of Wilton, Sir Griffin 
Markham, George Brooke, a younger brother of Lord Cob- 
ham, Anthony Copley the spy, and the two secular priests, 
William Watson and William Clarke. 

Lord Cobham had lodgings in the Lieutenant's house ; 
but the contriver of what Cecil called the Arabella Plot, 



The Arabella Plot. 227 

was kept in close confinement, with only a single servant 
to wait upon him day and night. 

Few things in the story of our State prison strike the 
imagination like the change which a few days of sharp 
privation wrought in the character of this rich and power- 
ful peer. When out of peril, Cobham appeared to be frank 
and fair. Faults he had in plenty; but his vices were 
those of a warm and generous nature ; pride in his house, 
heat in his blood, an insatiable greed of gold, an uncon- 
querable lust of power. Yet a few weeks of sharp priva- 
tion broke his sj)irit. In the court he had been a bold and 
saucy baron ; in the Tower he became a mean and abject 
serf. He knew that the judges and councillors who came 
down to question him could not torture him on account of 
his nobility ; but he also knew that these judges and coun- 
cillors could take away his life ; and life was a thing which 
this degenerate bearer of the name of Cobham prized above 
either an easy conscience or a stainless name. 

To the great misfortune of Raleigh, this rich court 
friend was connected by marriage with the families of 
Howard and of Cecil ; both of whom might hope to profit 
by his death. His wife was sent to tell him that his only 
hope of saving his neck, was to bring about Kaleigh's 
ruin ; and when Cecil, the chief of his inquisitors, told him 
the odious lie that Raleigh had accused him of high trea- 
son in the matter of Arabella, he pronounced the very 
words which Cecil wanted from his lips. If he were guilty 
of high treason, he said, Raleigh was guilty too, since he 
had been a partaker in all his plans. Cecil knew that the 
second lie was like the first ; but knowing the value of 
lies to a clever and unscrupulous lawyer, he sent Cobhani's 
falsehood to the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke. 

Raleigh found means to communicate with Cobham in 
the Lieutenant's house. In fact he made a friend of Pey- 



228 Her Majesty's Toicer. 

ton's son, also called Sir John, by whom messages were 
carried between the two prisoners. Cobham, looking out 
of his room, saw young Peyton standing in the garden 
talking to Raleigh at a window, and when the young man 
came to see him, two or three hours later, he cried out : * I 
saw you with Sir Walter Raleigh. God forgive him ! 
He hath accused me ; but I cannot accuse him.' Peyton 
replied, * That is what he says of you. You have accused 
him ; but he cannot accuse you.' 

Next day (as it would seem) Cecil came down to the 
Tower, with a view to complete his case for Coke by a 
final examination of Cobham. To his amazement, Cobham 
retracted every word which he had said. Raleigh had 
nothing to do with his plots ; had never adopted Arabella's 
claims ; had never spoken of Spanish help. Under such 
a change, the Council, as Count de Beaumont wrote to 
Henri, found it very difficult to proceed in the charge. 

Then came out a mysterious rumour that the great of- 
fender had laid hands upon himself For some days it had 
been whispered in court and city that. Raleigh was morose 
and proud; a prey to melancholy thoughts and restive 
dreams ; as though he were aching of some inward sore. 
At length, the rumour ran that Raleigh, sitting at Peyton's 
table, as his custom was, had snatched up a knife, bared 
his breast, and plunged the steel into his flesh. He was 
not dead. The point had struck on a bone and glanced 
aside from the vital part ; on which Raleigh had thrown 
away the weapon, crying, ' There, an end.' 

For reasons which may be guessed, the court desired this 
bruit to spread. Cecil spoke of it, and wrote of it, to sev- 
eral persons. He told the tale to Signor Molino, ambassa- 
dor from the Doge of Venice ; he wrote it to Sir Thomas 
Parry, his agent at the court of Henri the Great. Of course 
he sent the news to- James, who was in the country. James 



The Arabella Plot. 229 

was highly pleased, for an attempt at suicide seemed to him 
proof of Sir Walter's guilt. James wrote back to Cecil, 
' Let him be well probed ; have a good preacher with you ; 
and make him see that it is his soul he should wound and 
not his body.' 

It is impossible to believe this story true. Raleigh never 
spoke of an attempt on his own life. Cecil dropped the 
tale when it had served his turn. Coke, though straining 
every act and word of the accused into the vile suggestion 
that he cared for neither God nor devil, passed over this 
damning proof. Had the tale been true, would not Coke 
have told it in open court ? 

Again, if such a man as Raleigh had wished to kill him- 
self, how could he have failed ? A man has choice of a 
thousand deaths, and Raleigh was familiar with them all. 
He had knives in his cell. He had about him spirits and 
poisons of many sorts. He could have opened a vein ; he 
could have thrown himself from the wall. Raleigh knew 
that nothing is easier than for a willing mind to part with 
life. When, in his later troubles, Wilson spoke of seizing 
his jars and simples on the ground that he might some day 
poison himself and escape from justice, Raleigh answered 
with contempt, * Why, man, if I wished to die, could I not 
dash my head against that wall ?' 

A few years ago, a letter was printed for the first time, 
pretending to be written by Raleigh to his wife, which 
seemed to support Cecil's tale. That letter is not only a 
forgery, but a very impudent forgery. Its purpose was, 
not to sustain the lie about Raleigh's project of suicide, but 
to taint his name as an unfaithful husband to his wife. Of 
course that letter was not read on the trial ; of course it is 
only a copy; and equally of course the original is not 
known. The copy was found among a lawyer's papers ; 
a lawyer who was employed against Raleigh in his later 



230 Her 3fajestifs Tower. 

days ; and the paper was probably one of the countless for- 
geries which his enemies had the baseness to prepare, but 
not the hardihood to produce. 

Many persons suspected that the rumour of suicide was 
sent abroad as a test of public feeling. James was afraid 
of Raleigh's name. * I ha' heard rawly of thee, mon,' was 
his first greeting of the hero of Cadiz and Guiana. Indeed, 
that name was a power in the land before which a bolder 
prince than James might have bent his brows. During 
Raleigh's first restraint in the Brick tower, Elizabeth had 
been moved by reports of his amazing credit with her fleet. 
As a seaman, Raleigh stood alone. Essex owned in him a 
master ; and Effingham, though bearing the rank of Lord 
High Admiral of England, had been seen to j^ay him the 
extraordinary homage of wiping the dust from his shoes. 
If the king's advisers meant to * cut the throat ' of such a 
man, it may have been thought wise to learn how a report 
of his sudden death in the Tower Avould be received in the 
city, in the fleet, and in foreign courts. 

The result was probably such as to dissuade them from 
using violent means. We hear no more of Raleigh being 
probed.. Cecil came to see him, without bringing the godly 
preacher who was to search into his soul. In three or four 
days, the prisoner was reported well. Then Sir John Pey- 
ton was dismissed from his great office, and a new and less 
scrupulous Lieutenant, Sn* George Harvey, was installed in 
his house. 

The Peytons being sent away, as men unequal to their 
trust, a duel began between Cecil and Raleigh for the pos- 
session of Cobham's soul. The prize was not much ; not 
worth either the inquisitor's craft or the statesman's skill ; 
but fate had given into the hands of that weak and angry 
peer the power of either saving or destroying by a word 
the ojreatest hero in his native land. 



The Arabella Plot. 231 

Raleigh and Cecil were not ill matched ; for if one had 
incomparably the finer genius, the other had incomparably 
the deeper craft. But Cecil was free while his antagonist 
lay bound. Cecil was a minister who could send Cobham 
to the block ; Raleigh was a fallen man, who could do him 
neither good nor harm. Yet Raleigh fought it out. If he 
could get at Cobham, he might work upon his deeper and 
better feelings. How was he to get at Cobham? The 
new Lieutenant was Cecil's creature ; a man of low, ser- 
l^entine ways ; not radically wicked, yet fit for work of 
which a downright villain would have been ashamed. 
When Raleigh saw that he could do nothing with Sir 
George, he made a serviceable friend of Sir George's son ; 
a brave lad, through whom he kept up an irregular corre- 
spondence with Cobham, who had been lately moved from 
the Lieutenant's house to the more distant and lonely 
Wardrobe tower. 

A few weeks of harsh confinement in the Tower had so 
far unstrung Cobham's moral fibre, that he answered each 
of his questioners with a difierent tale ; one day charging 
Raleigh with a guilty knowledge of his designs ; next day 
drawing back that charge as a monstrous lie; a third 
day whining over a weakness which he could not help ; 
a fourth day going back to his original accusation, add- 
ing to it, blackening it ; then, after a brief interval, on 
a fresh api:)eal to his moral sense, retracting every word 
that he had spoken when the fit of fear was on his soul. 
It was a sight to see. In the presence of men who held 
his life in their hands, this English Claudio, dazed by 
mortal terroi^ answered all questions as they bade him 
by their looks and tones. Still, he could not stick to 
these lies when they were sworn. On Raleigh's remon- 
strance, he withdrew his accusations, calling God to wit- 
ness that-now, and now only, he spoke the truth. Young 



232 Her Majestifs Toiner. 

Harvey brought this answer from the Wardrobe to the 
Bloody tower. 

Raleigh knew that his young and devoted helper ran 
much risk in carrying messages to the Wardrobe tower ; 
and when the time of his trial drew near, he employed his 
own servant, William Cottrel, to take an apple, into which 
he had put a note, and, watching his happy chance when 
no one saw him, to throw it into Cobham's room. This 
note contained a passionate prayer to Cobham that, for 
love of God, and the sake of his wife and children, he 
would tell the truth in writing, so that his last confession 
could be read in court. The Wardrobe tower, to which 
Cobham had been sent, was in a lonely quarter, looking on 
the Queen's garden. Cottrel threw in his apple and re- 
ceived an answer to his master's message. That answer 
contained these words in Cobham's liand : — 

* To clear my conscience, satisfy the world, and free my- 
self from the cry of your blood, I protest, upon my soul, 
and before God and his angels, I never had conference with 
you in any treason ; nor was ever moved by you to the 
thing I heretofore accused you of ... . And so God 
deal with me and have mercy on my soul, as this is true.' 

These words were penned four days before the prisoners 
left the Tower for Winchester. One week later, Cobham 
was in that city among his inquisitors, w^ho jDcrsuaded him 
to declare that these last words sent to Raleigh had been 
got from him by artifice, and that they were not true ! 

Yet Cobham had made a statement to Sir George Harvey 
of the same kind, and of his own free-will. He had told Sir 
George that Raleigh knew nothing about his plot. This 
free and independent declaration of Raleigh's innocence 
Sir George Harvey kept back until the trial was over and 
the verdict given, when he told it in confidence to Cecil. 

A rare Lieutenant of the Tower ! 



Raleigh's Walk 233 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



ealeigh's walk. 



After those shameful scenes at Winchester, which Chief 
Justice Gaudy, one of the presiding judges, described on 
his dying bed as having degraded for ever the character 
of English justice, Kaleigh was brought back to the Tower, 
and lodged in his previous room ; the upper chamber of 
the Bloody tower ; the hinder passage of which led out by 
a door to the terrace, now known as Raleigh's Walk. 
From this walk — his favourite exercise for years — he could 
look down, on one side over the wharf and river, on the 
other side over the Lieutenant's garden and the green. 

No one thought as yet of his living in that room, of his 
pacing that walk, for fourteen years. The trial at Winches- 
ter exalted his credit for eloquence and patriotism ; he was 
the idol and the hero of young and old. Nobody believed 
in the Arabella Plot ; the princess herself had never heard 
of it ; and the hint that Raleigh, the hero of Cadiz, the 
founder of Free States, had been in league with Philip the 
Third against his country, was met by universal scorn. 
The noblest men and the holiest women were on Raleigh's 
side. Queen Anne admired him. Mary Sydney wrought 
for him ; charging her son. Lord Pembroke, as he valued 
her blessing, to use his utmost power, and that of all his 
friends, in Raleigh's favour. Arabella did what she could. 
Cecil and Harvey kept their secret ; yet no one believed 
that the great captain, who was engaged in planting a Free 
State in the New World, could be penned for many weeks 



234 Her Majesty's Tower. 

in the Tower, to please the mortal enemies of their native 
land. 

The allowance for diet, fire, and candle, was increased 
from four pounds a-week to five. Two servants besides 
William Cottrel had warrants to share his cell. Thomas 
Hariot, and other friends, were suffered to see him ; and 
Lady Raleigh and her boy, little Wat, were often at his 
side. 

Early in this new imprisonment, hope came gaily into 
his cell. The King was coming to the Tower on an act of 
grace ; coming in his state barge down the Thames, ac- 
companied by the Queen and Prince, and followed by all 
his court ; coming to make golden holidays ; to throw 
open the doors of every vault ; to set the prisoners free ; 
and to crown his act of grace by a mighty feast and show. 
This tale was partly true ; James sailed down the river ; 
but the day before he landed at the Queen's stair his great 
prisoner was carried to the Fleet, so that the king and a 
rout of lords and ladies might flutter through his empty 
cell. 

Raleigh remained two weeks and a half in the Fleet 
Prison, attended by his servants, with the same allowance 
for food, fire, and candle, as in the Tower. At the end of 
seventeen days, the court fooleries being then over, the 
prisoners were brought back and lodged once more in their 
empty cells. 

It was long before either Raleigh or Lady Raleigh could 
be brought to see that the men in power were bent on 
holding him fast for life. Raleigh could not know that he 
was held in bonds for Spain ; he could not tell the sums 
for which Cecil and Howard had sold him to Philip the 
Third. But neither Raleigh nor his wife was patient under 
wrong. Lady Raleigh came to live at the Tower, with lit- 
tle Wat ; and in the chamber in which King Edward had 



RaUigNs Walk. 235 

been killed, her second son, baby Carew, was born. But 
she could not sit by her husband's side, a silent witness of 
his pain. She was often at Sherborne Castle, their mag- 
nificent home in Dorset ; oftener still in the galleries of 
Whitehall, on the terraces of Windsor, among the fish- 
ponds at Theobalds; wearying the King with her peti- 
tions ; troubling the court with a remembrance of her 
wrongs. No captive ever found a bolder, a more winning 
advocate than Lady Raleigh. Her efforts were all in vain ; 
yet years passed by ere Raleigh could be brought to see 
that men who had served in the same field, sat on the 
same board with himself, under the great Queen, could 
sink into the depths of infamy into which Howard and Ce- 
cil had fallen as the pensioners of Spain. 

Of course their high pretence was fear of Philip. If En- 
gland wanted peace at any cost, why haggle in the cham- 
bers of Madrid ? But they had lower motives. Rich in 
money and in friends, Raleigh might find a thousand ways 
of making his anger felt ; and they had done him wrongs 
which they could never expect a proud man to forgive. 
Exile would not serve with him, as with his fellow-captive 
Markham, whom they sent abroad, with leave to sell his 
sword in a foreign camp. Raleigh was too great a captain 
to send away in search of bread. If he went abroad, he 
might find not only bread but power; for princely ofiers 
were being already made to him by foreign states. Henri 
of France strove hard to obtain his sword. The Dutch 
would have sent him to the Indies. Christiern of Den- 
mark wanted him as admiral of his fleets. In Italy his 
services were sought. Had Raleigh been thrown into a 
boat, like an old Celtic criminal, and turned adrift at sea 
with a jar of water and a pole, he would probably have 
been found in three or four years directing the councils and 
leading the forces of some powerful king. 



236 Her Majesty's Tower, 

Not daring to deal with him as they would have dealt 
with ordinary men, they locked him fast in the Tower, 
and plundered his estates. One of the spoilers, sad to say, 
was the great sailor Effingham, who had once thought it 
no dishonour to be seen wiping the dust from Raleigh's 
shoes with his own silken cloak. Though Effingham was 
rich and old, he begged for Raleigh's wine-patent; the 
chief source of his old friend's income, the reward for many 
years of service ; and he got it. * His lordship hath six 
thousand pounds,' wrote Lady Raleigh, * and three thou- 
sand pounds a-year, by my husband's fall.' Effingham 
claimed still more, and the weak King, whose penniless 
cousin he had married, gave him what he asked. * If his 
conscience warrant him,' wrote Lady Raleigh, in despair, 
* we must yield to God's will and the King's. . . . The 
bread and food taken from me and my children will never 
augment my lord's table, though it famish us.' 

In the stress of his poverty, Raleigh had to part from 
some of those companions who lived at his board and slept 
under his roof One of the nearest of these old friends 
was Thomas Hariot, the famous voyager and algebraist, 
from whose * Brief View of Virginia,' Raleigh learned much 
of his geography, and from whose ' Artis Analytica Praxis,' 
Des Cartes was accused of having stolen most of his 
mathematics. Raleigh had sent Hariot out to Virginia in 
1584, and for the next twenty years had kept him in his 
household. When his fortunes were broken, his manors 
seized, and his means cut off, he gave this faithful servant 
of science a letter to Northumberland, who carried him 
down to Petworth, helped him in his studies, and settled 
on him a pension of 120/. a-year for life. 

Though Raleigh was now lodged in the Tower, with 
three poor servants, living on five pounds a-week for food 
and fire, the men in office considered him far too strong. 



The Villain Waacl 237 

His fame was rising, instead of falling. Great ladies from 
the court cast wistful glances at his room. Men from the 
streets and ships came crowding to the wharf whence they 
could see him walking on the wall. 

Raleigh was a sight to see ; not only for his fame and 
name, but for his picturesque and dazzling figure. Fifty- 
one years old ; tall, tawny, splendid ; with the bronze of 
tropical suns on his leonine cheek ; a bushy beard, a round 
moustache, and a ripple of curling hair, which his man 
Peter took an hour to dress. Apparelled as became such 
a figure, in scarf and band of the richest colour and costliest 
stuflTjin cap and plume worth a ransom, in jacket powdered 
with gems ; his whole attire, from cap to shoe-strings blaz- 
ing with rubies, emeralds, and pearls ; he was allowed to be 
one of the handsomest men alive. 

The council got alarmed at the crowds who came down 
to see him. Harvey was thought too careless ; and a 
stricter gaoler was appointed to take his place. Sir Wil- 
liam Waad (' that villain, Waad,' as Raleigh had only too 
much cause to style him), began his service as Lieutenant 
by proposing to abridge the very few liberties which Ra- 
leigh then enjoyed. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE VILLAIN WAAD 



A WAKEFUL spy and unscrupulous tool, one of the secret 
agents who had been employed by Cecil in watching Percy 
andCatesby,the Gunpowder Plotters, Waad was sent to the 
Tower in the hope that his evil genius might invent some 
method of connecting Raleigh with that plot. 

Raleigh had, in truth, as much to do with the Gunpowder 



238 Her Majesty's Tower. 

Plot as with the Arabella Plot, and it seemed likely enough 
that he would be tried again, if not sentenced again, on 
some new charge. Only the fear of an acquittal stopped 
the game. 

In the little garden lying under Raleigh's Walk stood 
that Garden house in which Latimer had lived; a small 
house of lath and plaster, which was now used by the war- 
den as a hen-roost. Raleigh had obtained from Sir George 
Harvey the use of this Garden house as a still-room for his 
experiments. He was bent on following Nature into her 
secret haunts. He wished to solve the great problem of 
converting salt water into fresh. He dreamt of cordials 
for preserving health, and even hoped to find an elixir of 
life. Some things he had already done in the way of 
cordials, the fame of which had taken wings. 

One day the Countess de Beaumont, who had come down 
to the Tower with a bevy of ladies in her train, bowed to 
him as he was walking in his garden, and asked him if he 
would give her a little of his famous balsam of Guiana. He 
gallantly promised to prepare and send it. Waad, who 
could not bear to see great ladies bowing to his prisoner, 
wrote to Cecil, ^ Sir Walter Raleigh hath converted a little 
hen-house in the garden into a still, where he doth spend 
his time all day in his distillations. If a brick wall were 
built it would be more safe and convenient.* Nor was 
this interference with his chemical labours all that he had 
to bear from Waad. A few months later, the Lieutenant 
found a fresh cause of offence in the popular homage paid 
to the man whom he had been set to watch. * Raleigh,' he 
wrote to Cecil, * doth show himself upon the wall in his 
garden to the view of the people, who gaze upon him ; which 
made me bold to restrain him again.' 

Slowly, very slowly, the man of action paled into the man 
of thought. Under Harvey's rule, nothing more had been 



The, Villain Waacl 239 

heard of his pride and melancholy. He rose at dawn, curl- 
ed his dark hair and beard, made an early meal, wrote all 
the morning, walked in his garden, played a game of bowls 
with Sir George, and quaffed a horn of good English beer. 
Dining at the Lieutenant's table, he chatted with the guests 
about Virginia and the Spanish main. As time went by, 
and no pardon came, he bent his mind to more serious 
work. A thousand things which had crossed him in his 
busier days, came back in his cell and occupied his thoughts. 
One of these subjects was the sufferings endured by men 
at sea from want of water fit for drink. Having caught the 
idea of a new method of purging the brine from water, he 
fell to work. Lighting his fires, and boiling his sea-water, 
he struck upon a way of expelling salt ; a precious discov- 
ery, which he tested in his latest voyage, and found to act ; 
but the secret of which was unhappily lost, with much that 
was still more precious, in Palace Yard. Two hundred 
years elapsed before men of science got the clue again, when 
L'ving recovered the lost secret ; but no doubt can exist as 
to Raleigh's claim. Wilson wrote down the words from Ra- 
leigh's lips : — * He fell to tell me of his inventing the means 
to make salt water fresh or sweet, by furnaces of copper in 
the forecastle, and distilling of the salt water as it were 
by a bucket, j^utting in a pipe, and within a quarter of an 
hour it will run by a spigot, and the water as sweet as milk.' 
These studies, so precious to mankind, were interrupted 
by * that villain Waad,' in the interest of his master Cecil, 
who was only too ready to propitiate his bountiful patrons 
in Madrid. Cecil was building Hatfield house ; and that 
princely house was being built and furnished with Spanish 
gold. If any excuse could be found for taking Raleigh's 
life, the student would be offered without scruple as a sacri- 
fice to Philip the Third. If a pretext could not be found, 
it might be made. 



240 Her Majesty* s Toicer, 

When the Countess de Beaumont spoke to Raleigh in 
his garden, she had a gentleman in her train whom Raleigh 
knew by sight ; Captain Whitelocke, a retainer of his old 
friend Northumberland. Whitelocke came down to the 
Tower for that balsam of Guiana which was to be made for 
the French countess. This was all that either Waad or Ce- 
cil knew ; it was very little ; yet it was nearly as good evi- 
dence as Coke had been able to adduce at Winchester, in 
proof of his complicity in the Arabella Plot. Northumber- 
land was a kinsman of Percy, one of the plotters ; White- 
locke was a servant of Northumberland ; Raleigh was an 
acquaintance of Whitelocke. On these grounds, Raleigh's 
name was entered on a suspected list ; and commissioners 
were sent to examine him in the Bloody tower. Waad was 
one of these commissioners ; and being the Lieutenant also, 
he had rare opportunities of making his obstinate and con- 
temptuous prisoner feel his claws. Nothing could be wrung 
from Raleigh. Waad recommended the King to handle 
him more roundly, so as to break his pride ; and on the 
villain's suggestion, Raleigh was put under close restraint. 
He was turned out of his still-room, he was denied the use 
of his walk, and he was locked up in his cell at an early 
hour of the afternoon. 

Lady Raleigh and her two boys were sent away from 
the Tower ; and, in order to be near her husband, the poor 
lady was compelled to take lodgings on the hill outside, 
near Barking Church. 

Under these new privations Raleigh's health gave Avay. 
Sleeping in a stone room, with little air, with no iire, the 
man of active life, whose feet had been on the quarter- 
deck, whose days on land had been spent in the saddle, 
broke down into a pitiable wreck of his former self. The 
Avinter being cold, his flesh became chilled and numb. One 
hand fell feebly to his side ; the sinews of his arm shrank 



The Villain Waad. 24*- 

up. * Every second or third night,' he wrote to Cecil, ' I 
am in danger of either sudden death or of the loss of my 
limbs and senses, being sometimes two hours without feel- 
ing or motion of my hand and whole arm.' Then he add- 
ed, with some bitterness of heart, ' I complain not ; I know 
it is vain.' 

Peter Turner, a physician, who was allowed to see him, 
gave so bad an account of his condition that the very 
courtiers who were paid by Spain for keeping him, as it 
were, in chains, were startled into pity. His left side was 
described by the good doctor as quite numb ; the fingers 
of his left hand were curled ; his tongue was so hardened 
that he could not speak. The lodging in which he lay, 
said the physician, was too cold for any man to sleep in ; 
and he recommended that Waad should be ordered to re- 
move him into a warmer room. Turner suggested that he 
should be lodged in that little Garden-house in Avhich Lat- 
imer had layi, and in which his own experiments had been 
made. 

The men in office may h*ve been moved by pity for an 
old friend ; they may have seen their advantage in offering 
to indulge a dying hero. They had many troubles on their 
hands just then, and may have thought the prisoner in the 
Bloody tower a useful factor in their game. The King of 
Spain was causing them some trouble, and the name of 
Arabella Stuart was again in every man's mouth ; for this 
royal lady had chosen to marry without the King's con- 
sent, and her youthful husband, himself a pretender to 
James' crown, was a fugitive in Philip's Flemish court. 

For some of these reasons, the men in power relented so 
far towards the prisoner, that on Turner's formal request 
for a change being made, the Council gave orders to Waad 
for his removal from the Bloody tower into the little Gar- 
den-house in which he kejit his books and drugs. 

L 



242 Her Majesty^ s Totocr, 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

THE GARDEN-HOUSE. 

The lodge into which Raleigh was moved, on the sug- 
gestion of his physician, leaned against the Tower wall. 
It was warm and dry; covered from the Thames blast, 
and peeping out among trees and flowers. In this Gar- 
den-house Raleigh was to spend the noblest years of his 
life. 

His first love was science. In the hope ot finding a spe- 
cific cure for every evil to which flesh, as flesh, is heir, Ra- 
leigh sat in his still room, before his furnace and retort, 
day after day, year after year, questioning Nature with a 
keen eye, and tracking her secrets with a cupning hand. 
While he was bent on these great trials, he hit upon that 
powerful potion, which became widely known and univer- 
sally admired, as Raleigh's Great Cordial. 

Learned essays have been written to exjDOund the vir- 
tues of this mixture ; a blending of pearl, musk, hartshorn, 
bezoar stone, mint, borrage, gentian, mace, red rose, aloes, 
sugar, sassafras, spirits of wine, with twenty other things ; 
a charm against disease which was high in favour, not 
alone with city madams and country squires, but with the 
noblest persons in the land, notably with Queen Anne, with 
her son Charles the First, and her grandson Charles the 
Second. The ablest chemists tried to improve it; the 
wisest physicians sought to explain it. Digby proposed 
to increase its power by adding viper's heart and flesh. 
Frasier studied the science of its combination. Lefebre, 
the French physician, wrote a treatise, by the king's com- 



The, Garden-ITouse. 243 

mand, on its sovereign virtues. Queen Anne believed that 
it saved her life. Charles the Second would take no other 
medicine; and even now the Great Cordial finds a j^lace 
in our accepted medical schools. 

Drawing from his little fire in the still-room, these spirits 
and essences of nature, Kaleigh came to be regarded by 
simple folk as a great doctor. His room was filled with 
vases, jars, and phials ; which that paid spy and profane 
rascal. Sir Thomas Wilson, afterwards described as con- 
taining ^all the spirits in the world, except the Spirit of 
God.' Men of science came to learn from him. The Wiz- 
ard Earl stood by his side in the still-room. Ilariot and 
Allen watched his exi^eriments with a curious eye. May- 
erne admitted his supreme knowledge of drugs, and went 
very near to allov/ing his superior skill in judging of dis- 
ease. Folk sent to consult him in their sickness ; and if 
he had been free to go about, he might have gained a very 
large practice as a medical man. 

Hapless Lady Kaleigh could not turn her heart to 
books and cordials. Raving on year by year, she could 
not be comforted and would not be silenced. In her ar- 
dent wrestling with her fate, she complained of him, the 
recluse in the Tower ; saying, in her blind love, that even 
he would make no efibrt to get free. Absorbed with his 
books and phials, she fancied him wishing to be left alone 
to his own undoing. One day, as he sat before his desk 
writing, she burst into his room, just as she used to lie in 
wait for the King, holding little Wat by the hand, pressing 
her baby to her heart ; and standing thus before her hus- 
band, she asked him how he could be so cruel to his wife 
and babes, as to sit there, wasting his life, in poring over 
books and maps ? Poor captive ! This was the hardest 
trial he was called to bear. He could not blame her, and 
he could not help her. 



244 Her Majesty's Tower. 

Days, months, years went by. One by one his honours, 
offices, and estates were taken away by James. Durham 
house was one of the first to go. Sherborne Castle was 
still left to him ; but Sir Robert Carr, a new and grasping 
favourite, having heard that the house was good, that the 
site was beautiful, that the soil was rich, begged it from the 
King. When Lady Raleigh threw herself at James's feet, 
beseeching him not to take the bread from her children's 
mouths, the King coarsely answered, ' Madame, I maun 
ha' it ; I maun ha' it for Carr.' Lady Raleigh, hot with 
holy wrath, threw up her hands, and called on Heaven to 
launch its bolts on the man who robbed her fatherless chil- 
dren of their bread ! 

Those bolts were not long in coming. 

Raleigh's lodge under the Tower wall became a court, 
to which a crowd of men who stood highest among the 
learned and the great repaired for profit and delight. 
Raleigh was still a centre. Bacon sought in him a patron 
of the new learning. Percy dined with him in the Lieu- 
tenant's house. Harlot brought him books and maps. 
Pett came over with his models; Jonson Avith his epi- 
grams and underwoods. The magi — Harlot Hues, and 
Warner, made a part of Raleigh's court. Selden was often 
here; Mayerne sometimes, Bilson now and then. Nor 
were these all. Queen Anne sent messages to the prison- 
er. Prince Henry rode down from Whitehall to hear him 
talk. The young prince, who was eager about his sister's 
marriage, learned from Raleigh to distrust the policy of a 
Savoy match ; and from the same high source, he caught 
his leaning towards the court of France. Princess Eliza- 
beth looked on her brother's friend as her own best guide. 
For the young prince Raleigh wrote his * Discourse touch- 
ing a marriage between Prince Henry of England and a 
daughter of Savoy ;' for the young princess his * Discourse 



The Gardeoi-House. 245 

touching a match between the Lady Elizabeth and the 
Prince of Piedmont.' In both these treatises he gave new 
and deadly offence to his foes in Madrid. The Spanish 
faction at Whitehall were furious ; for the Prince and 
Princess made no secret of their own adhesion to Raleigh's 
views. It seemed to those pensioners of Philip that Ra- 
leigh was establishing a second government in the Tower, 
from which he presumed to dictate his policy to the King. 
And they were right. Raleigh's writings struck the note 
of opposition, everywhere slumbering in men's hearts, 
against a match with cither Spain or an ally of Spain. 
Elizabeth married a German Prince ; setting the example, 
so largely followed in all coming years, of seeking alliances 
for our reigning house, not among strange races, but among 
our own Teutonic kin. 

But the talk of the old sailor and the young prince ran 
much on the sea,-on ships, and on naval war, for which the 
lad was already quickening with heroic fire. Raleigh 
promised to reduce his thoughts on these high things to 
order, in a regular treatise on ' The Art of War by Sea.' 
Riding away from the Tower after one of the mornings 
thus spent, the Prince cried aloud to his attendants, ' No 
man but my father would keep such a bird in a cage.' 

When the Prince fell sick. Queen Anne insisted that 
he should take Raleigh's cordial; a medicine which had 
saved her own life, she said, when every other remedy had 
failed. It came too late ; the hope of England died ; and 
the projected treatise on naval war was laid aside. 

In this Garden-house Raleigh finished, if he did not be- 
gin, the first part of his magnificent ' History of the World ;' 
a work without an original ; though it has had a thousand 
successors. The tale there told in part was to have been 
a great prose epic ; its theme, the life of man on our moth- 
er earth. In the eleventh year of his confinement, Raleigh 



246 II<iT Majesty's To\mr. 

produced one volume of his labours ; all that he lived to 
write ; and it is no new thing to say that this volume of 
universal history is one of the grandest fragments on our 
library shelf. 

Opinions vary as to Raleigh's share in the production of 
his work. Ben Jonson told his friend Drummond, that 
the history was composed by a circle of wits ; but this ac- 
count can hardly have been true. Ben wrote the j)oetic 
prefix, though he did not dare to sign it. There, I think 
the foreign work begins and ends. The style is uniform 
throughout ; a style too pure for any other pen to claim. 
No doubt the historian sought such help as every historian 
seeks and finds. Burrell aided him with Hebrew ; Hariot 
gave him hints on science ; others may have heli3ed him 
in questions beyond his ken. But the book, as book, is 
certainly Raleigh's own. 

From the Garden-house he sent forth other writings; 
some of great value, others trifles of the day. Among 
these works may be named 'A Discourse on the invention 
of Ships,' and * Observations on the Sea Service.' 

But his main solace after all was the heroic work in 
which he had embarked his fame and fortunes from his 
earliest times ; that of founding Free States ; fighting the 
Spaniards with a weapon that would renew itself for ever. 
From the Bloody tower he directed operations in Guiana 
and in Virginia ; never ceasing to drop his purse into that 
scale into which he could no longer dash his sword. 

On the episode of Raleigh's release from prison, his west- 
ern voyage, his unhappy return, and his fresh arrest, there 
is little need to dwell. These events make the history of 
England for one troubled and shameful year. When he 
came back a prisoner, he found his apartments in the 
Bloody tower and the Garden lodge occupied by his spoil- 
ers, Carr and his new wife, now Earl and Countess of Som- 
erset. 



The Brick Tower, 241 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE BKICK TOWER. 

The Brick tower stands on the northern wall, a little to 
the west of Martin tower, with which it communicates by a 
secret passage. This tower overlooks the lines from Brass 
Mount to Legge Mount, and sweeps the opposite slope and 
ditch. The men who held the tower were gunners ; and the 
captain of these troops was the real master of the Thames 
and of the approaches to London. Hence the Master of 
the Ordnance was generally a man of rank, and always a 
man of trust. In the reign of Elizabeth that office was fill- 
ed by Charles, Earl of Devonshire ; to whom succeeded 
George, Lord Carew ; Raleigh's cousin, who held his post 
during the whole of James's reign. 

The rooms being good, and the master seldom in resi- 
dence, this house was placed at the disposal of any person 
of rank to whom the Government wished to show favour. 
Thus, when Raleigh was committed for his amour with the 
maid of honour, he was lodged in the master's house. Ra- 
leigh had the liberty of the Tower within the walls ; he 
kept a great table, had a crowd of servants, and received 
the visits of many friends. The small upper room was fill- 
ed by his domestics, and the brilliant seamen, looking on 
his recall from sea as a royal jest, could hardly have dream- 
ed that in his wan and premature age that upper room, into 
which he would not willingly have thrust a dog, would be- 
come his own miserable home. 

Northumberland, who had hired the Brick tower from 
Lord CarcAV, for his son Algernon's use, kept his tenancy 



248 Her Majesty^s Tower. 

until he was thrust out of his lodgings by Sir Thomas Wil- 
son, witli a view, as it would seem, to some such crime as 
that by which his grandfather had been done to death in 
the Bloody tower. 

When Raleigh was brought back to the Tower, after his 
disastrous voyage, his old rooms in the Bloody tower and 
the Garden-house being occupied by Lord and Lady Som- 
erset, he was lodged for a few days with the Lieutenant, 
Sir Allan Apsley — a man who admired and loved him — un- 
til the spacious Wardrobe tower could be furnished and 
arranged for his use. In that pleasant chamber, looking on 
the Queen's garden and across the Thames, into which Cot- 
trel had thrown the apple, he took up his abode, with his 
books, his globes, his phials, and his plants. Beginning his 
life anew, he set about the great experiments on which he 
had already spent his time to such noble ends. His rooms 
were large ; and he had the free use of a garden. In the 
Wardrobe, he kept his health, until Wilson came down from 
court on what was seen from the first to be a bloody pur- 
pose. 

James was in a strait. The Spanish agents who were 
promising him an Infanta for his son, were yelling in his 
ear for Raleigh's blood. The King, though willing enough 
to yield, was not daring enough to face the consequences 
of murdering Raleigh by legal means. In fact, while he 
did not scruple to do wrong, he shrank from the infamy 
which he felt would fall upon his name. If Raleigh would 
only kill himself, all would be well. Even if he could be 
taken off privately, so as to leave the case in doubt, it 
might be better than a public; murder. Secretary Xaunton, 
who knew the King's secret wishes, found Wilson in his 
pay, and thought him the man to repeat Bailiff's work. 
Naunton brought Wilson into James's jDresence, and from 
that secret interview with the King, the wretch came down 



The Brick Tower, 249 

to the Tower and surveyed his ground. The moment he 
was seen, a whisper ran about the Tower that he had come 
to murder Raleigh ; on which the honest Lieutenant, Sir 
Allan Apsley, stood upon his guard. Apsley not only ad- 
mired his prisoner, but wished to avoid his foregoer's fate. 
Wilson had brought down to Sir Allan a most unusual 
warrant. This order from the Council authorized Wilson 
to take charge of Raleigh ; to remain constantly in his 
company ; to keep him a close prisoner ; to prevent any 
one from speaking with him, or even coming near him, ex- 
cept in case of necessity, and only then in his own presence. 
Apsley, though he must have been surprised, was not cowed. 
A Lieutenant of the Tower, he was responsible to the law 
for what took place within the gates ; and though he ad- 
mitted Wilson into the Wardrobe by day, he turned him 
out at night, and resolutely objected to give up his keys. 
Wilson complained to Naunton that he could do nothing 
in that place and in that way. The Wardrobe tower, he 
said, was a big house, with two windows, from either of 
which letters might be thrown into the Queen's garden, 
and through which nearly everything passing in Raleigh's 
chamber might be seen. He wanted a place, he said, less 
open to observation ; one in which his prisoner would have 
to sleep in a room either above or within his own. Such a 
place, he said, after searching the Tower from end to end, 
he had found in the house then occupied by Lord Percy. 
These rooms he must have. But the Earl of Northumber- 
land, having hired these lodgings for his son, refused to 
give them up, just as Sir Allan Apsley refused to give up 
his keys. Wilson went back to his employers. Not give 
up the keys ? Not give up the Brick tower ? A peremp- 
tory order came from court, which showed Sir Allan who 
was now to be master in the tower. Apsley was ordered 
to give up Raleigh into Wilson's charge : to allow him the 

L2 



230 Her Majesty's Tower. 

Brick tower as a lodging ; to deliver up the keys ; to send 
away Kaleigli's servant, and replace him by one of Wilson's 
men. Sir Allan was forbidden to let any doctor see his 
prisoner, except in Wilson's presence and by his consent. 

Naunton wrote to Wilson that the King was pleased 
with what was done ; that he waited the ripening of his 
prescription ; that he hoped Wilson would get the better 
hand of the hypocrite ; and that he felt much comfort in 
the knowledge that he should not be troubled with Raleigh 
long. 

If Secretary Naunton's words do not imply the intention 
to murder Raleigh, language has no meaning. 

With the cunning of his black purpose, Wilson lodged 
his captive in the topmost room of the Brick tower, while 
he appropriated Lord Carew's comfortable chambers to 
himself and his men. ' I have been employed,' he wrote to 
the King's secretary, ^ in removing this man to safer and 
higher lodging, which, though it seems nearer heaven, yet 
is there no means of escape from thence for him to any 
place but hell.' In the Wardrobe, Raleigh had kept up his 
chemical experiments, the value of which he had tested in 
his late voyage, when he put his copper furnace on board 
his ship, and gave out to each of his crew of two hundred 
and forty men, several quarts of fresh water every day. 
Wilson took away his drugs and phials, under the absurd 
pretence that he might poison himself. * Why,' said Ra- 
leigh, with contempt, * if I want to kill myself, I can dash 
my head against that wall.' The ignorant apothecaries wiio 
seized his jars and spirits, said they could not answer for 
the effect of swallowing his stuff unless they knew what it 
was made of ; and through the violence of these mounte- 
banks the great secret of distilling salt water into sweet 
was lost to mankind. 

Yet the mysterious hint which had given the King such 



The Brick Tower. 251 

comfort bore no fruit. If Wilson meant murder, he found 
no opportunity to carry out his plan. Indeed, to assassinate 
such a master of fence as Raleigh would have been no easy 
work, and a mean and brutal coward like Wilson was hard- 
ly the man to try. Raleigh would have spurned him like a 
dog or felled him like a slave. Nor could Wilson draw his 
prisoner to the point of suicide. Day after day he put 
a knife, as it were, into his captive's hand, by talking of 
men who had killed themselves to escape a shameful death. 
Raleigh would not take his hints. Once, when he praised the 
old Roman senators, Wilson hoped that something would 
ensue ; but his prisoner gave no sign of following the 

High Roman fashion, 
and when Wilson renewed the subject another day, Ra- 
leigh spoke very gravely against self-murder, saying that 
for himself he would die in the light of day and in the face 
of his countrymen. 

The Spaniards could not wait. They clamoured for his 
death; the King of Spain declaring, under his own hand 
and seal, that Raleigh must be instantly put to death. To 
the last moment there was doubt and strife at court. The 
Queen was for saving Raleigh ; and the Queen was sup- 
ported in her efforts by all those persons who leaned to- 
wards the policy of a French alliance for the Prince of 
Wales. Spain tempted the King with a larger dowry than 
France. Queen Anne said she did not care for money ; and 
would prefer a French princess for her son, to an Infanta 
with all her gold. But gold tempted James, and the prof- 
ligate minion of James. Finally, the order for his execu- 
tion — the end for which he had waited long— was signed. 

Wilson, who had failed in his infamous mission, was sent 
away ; the Brick tower was restored to the honourable cus- 
tody of Sir Allan ; and the last ten days of Raleigh's life 
on earth were spent in peace. The bitterness of strife was 



252 Her Majesty's Tower, 

passed ; he knew that he must now die ; and with the cer- 
tainty of his fate came back to him, not only his high spirit, 
his ready wit, and his gay demeanour, but in some degree 
his physical health. 

The warrant for his death reached the Tower at eiirht 
o'clock on a dark October morning. Raleigh was in bed ; 
but on hearing the Lieutenant's voice, he sprang lightly to 
his feet, threw on his hose and doublet, and left his room. 
At the door he met Peter, his barber, coming in. ' Sir,' said 
Peter, ^ we have not curled your head this morning.' Ra- 
leigh smiled ; * Let them comb it that shall have it.' Peter 
followed him to the gate, while Raleigh kept on joking in 
his usual vein. ' Peter,' he asked, * canst thou give me any 
plaster to set on a man's head when it is off ?' 

Next day it was ofE in Palace Yard ; the proudest head 
that ever rolled into English dust. 

That day was thought to be a very sad day for English- 
men. The partizans of Spain went mad with joy. 

Yet the victory was not to Spain. A higher power than 
man's directs the course of a nation's life ; the death of a 
hero is not failure ; for the martyr's blood is stronger than 
a thousand swords. The day of Raleigh's death was the 
day of a new English birth. Eliot was not the only youth 
of ardent soul who stood by the scaffold in Palace Yard, 
to note the matchless spirit in which the martyr met his 
fate, and walked away from that solemnity — a new man. 
Thousands of men in every part of England who had led a 
careless life became from that very hour the sleepless ene- 
mies of Spain. The purposes of Raleigh were accomplish- 
ed, in the very way which his genius had contrived. 
Spain held the dominion of the sea, and England took it 
from her. Spain excluded England from the New World, 
and the genius of that New World is English. 

The large contest in the new political system of the 



The Brick Tower. 253 

world, then young, but clearly enough defined, had come to 
turn upon this question — Shall America be mainly Spanish 
and theocratic, or English and free ? Raleigh said it should 
be English and free. He gave his blood, his fortune, and 
his genius, to the great thought in his heart ; and in spite 
of that scene in Palace Yard, which struck men as the vic- 
tory of Spain, America is at this moment English and free. 



INDEX. 



Agincourt, battle of, 41, 43, 

Angus, Archibald, Earl of Angus, marries 
during the lifetime of his first wife Queen 
Margaret, 104 ; is divorced from Margaret, 
105 ; his child ia declared legitimate by 
the Pope, ib. 

Apsley, Sir Allan, Lieutenant of the Tower, 
his reluctance to give up Raleigh into Sir 
T. Wilson's charge, 249. 

Arabella plot, the, 225-232. 

Armada, Spanish, 20T, 212, 213. 

Armoury, the, 11. 

Arundel, Thomas, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, his enmity to the Lollards, 64 ; cites 
Sir John Oldcastle to appear before him 
at Canterbury, 65; his crafty conduct aft- 
er the escape of Sir John from the Tower, 
68. 

Arundel, Earl of, one of the barons who put 
Sir Simon Burley to death, 59 ; is seized 
by Richard II., tried and executed, 61. 

Arundel, Henry, Earl of, his enmity to the 
Duke of Suffolk on account of his separa- 
tion from his sister, 106 ; recognizes the 
claims of Lady Jane Grey to the throne, 
110, 111; his hypocritical conduct, ib. ; 
deserts to -Queen Mary, 121; is sent by 
Mary to arrest the Duke of Northumber- 
land, 122 ; seizes the Duke at Cambridge, 
123 ; is appointed Constable of the Tower, 
123 ; calls in citizens to witness the apos- 
tasy of the Duke of Northumberland, 126. 

Arundel, Philip, Earl of. See Howard. 

Aske, Robert, is forced to be captain of the 
Pilgrims of Grace, 86 ; advances on Pom- 
fret Castle, 88 ; is confronted by the Duke 
of Norfolk at Doncaster Bridge, 89 ; joins 
the second Pilgrimage, 92 ; is captured 
by Norfolk, and executed, 99. 

Bacon, Lord, 10 ; his friendship with Sir 
Walter Raleigh, 219. 

Bailly, Monsieur Charles, employed by the 
Bishop of Ross as his agent in the trea- 
sonable correspondence with the Catho- 
lic powei's, 177 ; is seized at Dover, 181 ; 
his examination, 182 ; is sent to the Mar- 
shalsea, 184 ; his correspondence with the 
Bishop of Ross intercepted, 185 ; is sent 
to tlie Tower, ib. ; is racked, 186; is in- 
duced by an ingenious stratagem to con- 
fess, 187 ; his revelations, ib. ; memorials 
of him in the Tower, 185, 188. 



Bailiff, Thomas, murders the Earl of North- 
umberland, 197-199. 

Baliol, Jolm de, King of Scotland, is con- 
fined in the Banqueting floor of the White 
tower, 34, 38 ; his household life in con- 
finement, 39 ; is released by the Papal 
nuncio, 39. 

Banqueting-hall, 38. 

Barbican, the, built by Henry IIL, 20-22. 

Barons, their opposition to King John, 38. 

Barton, Elizabeth, ' Maid of Kent,' fiercely 
denounces the divorce of King Henry 
VIII. from Queen Catharine, 74, 75; is 
committed to the Tower, and executed 
at Tybujn, 76. 

Beaucharap, Thomas de, Earl of Warwick, 
his tastes and pursuits, 59 ; is appointed 
by the Commons governor to Richard of 
Bordeaux, ib. ; is dismissed by Richard, 
60 ; his employments at Warwick Cas- 
tle, ib. ; his seizure and committal to the 
Beauchamp tower, ib. ; his trial, 61, 62 ; 
is sentenced to be hung, drawn, and 
quartered, 62; Richard imprisons him in 
the Isle of Man, 63 ; is restored to his liber- 
ty and estates by Henry Bolingbroke, ib. 

Beauchamp tower, 16, 58; received its 
name from Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl 
of Warwick, 59 ; also called •■ Cobham 
tower,' 59, 66 ; noble prisone; s confined 
therein, 200. 

Beaumont, Countess de, her interview with 
Raleigh, 238, 240. 

Belfry, the, 11,16,19,212. 

Bennet, Father, his celebration of Mass in 
the Tower, 212, 213. 

Bexley, Abbot of, put in the stocks by Lady 
Wyat, 56. 

Bigod, Sir Francis, is one of the leaders of 
the Second Pilgrimage of Grace, 97 ; is 
executed, 99. 

Bloody tower, the (Gate house, originally 
called Garden tower), 11, 16, 47, 124; the 
princes Edward V. and the Duke of York 
murdered in, 46-48 ; Cranmer in, 151 ; 
Courtney, 157 ; Northumberland, 194- 
199 ; Raleigh's second and third impris- 
onments, 218. 

Blount, Sir Michael, Lieutenant of the 
Tower, 217. 

Booking, Father, the chief instructor of the 
Maid of Kent, 75 ; is executed at Tyburn, 
70. 



256 



Index. 



Boleyn, Anne, her reception by Henry 
VIII. at the Tower, 25 ; her committal to 
the Tower and her reception there by Sir 
William Kingston, 26. 

Bowyer tower, tlie, 16. 

Brackenbury, Sir John, Lieutenant of the 
Tower, has charge of the two princes, Ed- 
ward V. and the Duke of York, 48 ; re- 
fuses to murder them, 50. 

Brandon, Charles, Duke of Suffolk, his 
marriage to Mary, the daughter of Henry 
VII., 105. 

Brass Mount, 16. 

Brick tower, the, 16 ; the scene of Sir Wal- 
ter Kaleigh's fii-st and last imprison- 
ments, 218-247. 

Broad Arrow tower, 16. 

Bruce, Uavid, son of Kobert Bruce, is taken 
prisoner by Queen Philippa, 38 ; is lodged 
in the Banqueting-hall, ib. 

Brydges, Sir John, Lieutenant of the Tow- 
er, receives Lady Jane Grey, 112 ; fires 
upon Wyat's men, 135 ; his reception of 
Wyat, 138; of Latimer, 154; induces 
Wyat to implicate the Princess Elizabeth 
in his plot, 156 ; is created by Queen Mary 
Baron Chandos, 157; his conduct at Wy- 
at's execution, 153. 

Brydge?, Thomas, Deputy-Lieutenant of the 
Tower, attends Lady Jane Grey at her 
execution, 151. 

Buckingham, Duke of. See Stafford. 

Builders' prices in the reign of Edward HI., 
14. 

Bulmer, Sir John, joins the Pilgrims of 
Grace, 90 ; his connexion with Madge 
Cheyne, ih. ; is hung at Tyburn, 100. 

Bulmer, Sir Ralph, joins the Pilgrims of 
Grace, 90; is taken prisoner, 99; is par- 
doned and his estates restored to him, 100. 

Burghley, Lord, William Cecil, his opposi- 
tion to the marriage of Daruley with 
Mary Queen of Scots, 167 ; employs the 
Earl of Lennox as English agent to the 
Scottish court, 168 ; counteracts the plots 
of the Bishop of Ross and Mary Queen of 
Scots, 182, 184 ; is present at the trial of 
Philip the Confessor, 214. 

Burgundy, Duke of, pays the ransom of 
Charles of Orleans, 45. 

Burley, Sir Simon, seized by the barons, 
tried and executed, 59. 

Bye-ward gate, the, 11, 22. 

Bye-ward tower, the, 16. 

Cffisar's tower, its antiquity, 10, 11 ; used by 
the Norman kings as a royal residence, 
ib. ; its contents and associations, 12 ; is 
now called the White tower, ib. See 
White tower. 

Carr, Sir Robert, one of the favourites of 
James I., 244 ; receives from him Shei'- 
bourne Castle, the seat of Raleigh, ib. 

Catharine of Aragon, her divorce fiercely 
denounced by the monks, 75 ; pai't taken 
by Cranmer in procuriug her divorce, 
153. 



Catharine of Valois married to Henry V., 
43. 

Cecil, Sir Robert, his subserviency to the 
court of Fpain, 239 ; his treatment of Ra- 
leigh, 225. 

Cecil, Sir William. See Burghley. 

Charles II. orders the bones of the young 
princes, murdered by Richard III., to be 
deposited in the chapel of Henry VII., 52, 
53. 

Charles, Duke of Orleans, marries Isabella 
of Valois, 41, 42 ; on her death, Bona, 
daughter of tlie Count of Arraagnac, 42 ; 
is captured by King Henry V. at Agin- 
court, 41, 43 ; is lodged in the Banquet- 
ing floor of the White tower, and a ran- 
som of 300,000 crowns fixed on his head, 
34, 41, 43 ; remains a prisoner twenty-five 
years, 44 ; his prison-life, ib. ; the Duke 
of Bui'guudy pays his ransom, 45; his 
wife Bona being dead, he marries Mary 
of Cleves, ib. 

Charles, Monsieur. See Bailly. 

Cheyne, Margaret, or Madge Cheyne, her 
parentage, 90 ; her bitter enmity to the 
Duke of Norfolk and Cromwell, 91, 92 ; 
her enthusiasm in the cause of the Pil- 
grims of Grace, 92 ; is captured and sent 
to the Tower, 99; is burnt in Smithfield, 
100. 

Clarence, Duke of, said to be drowned by 
the Duke of Gloucester in a butt of wine, 
45. 

Clink prison, the, 209, 210. 

Cobham, Lord. See Oldcastle. 

Cobham, Thomas, of Couling, one of the 
leaders in the rising of the men of Kent, 
137; is captured and committed to the 
Tower, 138. 

Cobham, George, Lord, intercepts the cor- 
respondence forwarded by Ridolfi to the 
Bishop of Ross, 181; he espouses the 
claims of Arabella Stuart, 225-227; is 
committed to the Tower, 226 ; implicates 
Sir W. Raleigh, 227; retracts his accu- 
sations, 228, 232 ; his trial at Winches- 
ter, 232. 

Cobham tower, a name given to the Beau- 
cliamp tower from the ' good Lord Cob- 
ham ' having been imprisoned there, 66. 

Coke, Sir E., his examination of Lord Cob- 
hiim in the Tower, 227. 

Common Pleas, Court of, its site in the 
Tower determined, 18. 

Constable of the Tower, his duty and fees, 
53. 

Constable's tower, 15, 16, 53. 

Coronation-stone, brought from Scotland by 
Edward I., 38. 

Courtney, Edward, a descendant of Edward 
IV., 107, 139 ; his early life, 139 ; is cast 
into the Tower when twelve years of age, 
141 ; his prison amusements, ib. ; is re- 
leased by Queen Mary, ib. ; his reception 
by her at the Tower gates, 142 ; aspires 
to her hand, ib. ; on Mary's contract witli 
the Prince of Spain, he looks to the Priu- 



Index. 



257 



cess Elizabeth, 143 ; is re-committed, at 
the instigation of Renard, to the Tower, 
144, 155 ; is removed to Fotheringay cas- 
tle, 158 ; his release, and death at j^adua, 
159. 

Courtney, Henry, Marquis of Exeter, the 
Yorkist party anxious to make him their 
leader, 140 ; is called the White Kose of 
York, ih. ; is committed to the Tower by 
Henry VIII. and executed, 141. 

Cradle tower, built by Henry III., 13,16, 22. 

Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbuiy, sup- 
ports the cause of Lady Jane Grey, 119 ; 
is committed to the Tower, 128, 152 ; his 
character, ib. ; reasons for Mary's enmity 
towards him, 153 ; his conferences with 
Latimer and Ridley, 154 ; his I'ecantation 
and subsequent martyrdom at Oxford, 
154, 155. 

Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex, is hated 
by the monks for the part taken by him 
la the seizure of monasteries, 85, 92, 93. 

Dacre, Anne, wife of Philip Howard, Earl 
of Arundel, her separation from, and rec- 
onciliation to, her husband, 203, 204; 
her endeavours to procure his release, 
208 ; resolves to have mass performed in 
the Tower, 212; corrupts the daughter 
of the Lord Lieutenant, ih. 

Darcy, Lord, of Darcy, is captured at Pom- 
fret castle by the Pilgrims of Grace, 88 ;• 
is appointed one of their leaders, ih. ; is 
taken prisoner and executed, 99. 

Darnley, Henry, Lord, marries Mary Queen 
of Scots, 170; his murder, 171. 

Develin tower, the, 16, 124. 

Dudley, John, Duke of Northumberland, 
President of the Council at the death of 
Edward VI., 107; espouses the claims of 
Lady Jane Grey to the throne, 108 ; mar- 
ries her to his son Guilford, 108, 109 ; en- 
deavours to seize the Princess Mary, 110 ; 
is appointed to take the command against 
Mary, 115; his departure from London, 

116, 117 ; desertion of his fleet and army, 
118, 120; is arrested by Lord Arundel at 
Cambridge, 123; is taken to the Tower, 
124; is tried in Westminster hall, and 
sentenced to death, 125; abjures his re- 
ligion, 126 ; is executed on Tower hill, 
127. 

Dudley, John, Earl of Warwick, 101, 114, 

117, 122, 124, 126, 127. 

Dudley, Lord Guilford, son of the Duke of 
Northumberland, is married, through the 
intrigues of his father, to Lady Jane 
Grey, 108, 109 ; is committed to the Tow- 
er, 124 ; is executed, 150. 

Dudley, Lord Robert, sent by his father, the 
Duke of Northumberland, to seize the 
Princess Mary, 110; is unsuccessful, 114; 
is committed to the Tower, 124; memo- 
rials of him in Beauchamp tower, ih. 

Durham House, the marriage of Guilford 
Dudley and Lady Jane Grey celebrated 
at, 108 ; the residence of Raleigh, 219. 



Edward I. rebuilds St. Peter's Church on 
Tower Green, 14 ; John de Baliol yields his 
crown to him, 38 ; brings the coronation- 
stone from Scotland, ih. 

Edward II. and Queen Isabella hold their 
court in the White tower, 40. 

Edward IV., his profligate life, 49. 

Edward V. and the Duke of York murdered 
in the Bloody tower by Richard HI., 46 ; 
historic doubts respecting their murder, 
46, 47 ; are smothered by Tyrrell and two 
associates, 51 ; are interred behind a stair 
in the Keep, 46, 51 ; their bones discov- 
ered in the reign of Charles II., and de- 
posited by him in the chapel of Henry 
VIL, 52, 53. 

Edward VI., his death at Greenwich Pal- 
ace, 109. 

Effingham, Lord, his rapacity, 236. 

Elinor of Provence, or La Belle, a scene in 
her life, 23, 24. 

Eliot, Sir John, his ' Monarchy of Man ' writ- 
ten within the Tower, 10 ; present at Ra- 
leigh's execution, 252. 

Elizabeth, daughter of Heniy VIII. and 
Anne Boleyn, Edward Courtney aspires 
to her hand, 144, 159; is committed to 
the Tower by her sister Mary, 26, 156; 
her views respecting the marriage of her 
cousin Mary Queen of Scots, 166 ; her op- 
position to the marriage of Darnley with 
Mary, 167-170; places her cousin Mar- 
garet in the Tower, 167; after the mur- 
der of Darnley, she releases Margaret, 171, 
172 ; frequent plots against her crown by 
Queen Mary, 174-179 ; sends the Duke of 
Norfolk to the Tower, 179; papal bull 
launched against her, 180, 181; heu visit 
to Kenning Hall, 204 ; spares the life of 
Philip the Confessor, 215; obliges Ra- 
leigh to marry Bessie Tlirogmorton, 223. 

Falstaff, Sir John, and Sir John Oldcastle, 
71. 

Feckenham, Father, confessor to Queen 
Mary, his endeavours to persuade Lady 
Jane Grey to abjure the Protestant faith 
fruitless, 145-147 ; induces the Queen to 
delay Lady Jane's execution, 147; dis- 
cussion with Lady Jane on the Real Pres- 
ence, 149; attends Lady Jane at her exe- 
cution, 150 ; his controversies with Cran- 
mer, Latimer, and Ridley, 154. 

Fisher, Cardinal, Bishop of Rochester, is 
charged with aiding and abetting the 
Maid of Kent, 74, 76; is committed to the 
Tower, 77 ; is lodged in the Strong Room 
of the Belfry, 77, 78; his prison-life, 78; 
Pope Paul HI. sends him a cardinal's hat, 
78 ; his execution, 78, 79. 

Fisher, William, breaks into the Tower and 
liberates the good Lord Cobham, 68 ; sen- 
tence pronounced upon him, 70. 

Fitzwalter, Lord, father of Maud the Fair, 
resents the conduct of King John to his 
daughter, 37; his flight to France, 38; 
his return to England on the murder of 



258 



Index, 



his daughter, ih. \ heads the revolt of the 
barons against King John, ih. ; joins the 
Crusaders, ib. ; his death, ib. 

Flambard, Kalph. See Ralph, Bishop of 
Durham. 

Flamsteed, the astronomer, employs a turret 
of the White Tower for an observatory, 
35. 

Flint To\rer, the, 16. 

Flodden Field, battle of, 104. 

Fotheringay Castle, Edward Courtney con- 
fined there, 15S. 

Frances, Princess, daughter of Mary and the 
Duke of Suffolk, a claimant of the throne 
of England on the death of Edward VI., 
105 ; is married to Henry Grey, Marquis 
of Dorset, 1C6. 

Frobisher, Sir Martin, brings back Sir W. 
Raleigh, 223. 

Gage, Sir John, Constable of the Tower, and 
the Princess EUzabeth, 26. 

Galleyman tower, built by Heniy III., 13, 
16-22. 

Garden tower. See Bloody tower. 

Garden house, the, 74; Latimer and Raleigh 
prisoners there, 154, 242, 

Gardiner, Bishop, his release from confine- 
ment in the Tower at the accession of 
Queen Mary, 142 ; becomes Mary's chief 
councillor, 156. 

Gates, Sir John, executed on Tower hill for 
liis adhesion to Lady Jane Grey, 127. 

Gate house. See Bloody tower. 

Gaunt, John of, presides over the trial of 
the Earl of Warwick, 61. 

Gerau, Don, Spanish Ambassador, assists 
the Bishop of Ross in manufacturing 
forged letters, 183, 184. 

Gifford, Father, his treacherous conduct, 
206. 

Gloucester, Duke of. See Richard III. 

Grately, Father, the spiritual guide of Philip 
the Confessor, 205, 206, 208. 

Great Hall, 15, 18, 47. 

Greenwich Palace, death of Edward VI. at, 
109. 

Grey, Henry, Marquis of Dorset, separates 
from Lady Catharine Fitz-Alan, and mar- 
ries Princess Frances, a descendant of 
Henry VIL, 106 ; provokes the enmity of 
Lord Arundel by his separation from his 
sister, ih. ; is created Duke of Suffolk, 
ib. ; with Lady Jane Grey in Tower, 121 ; 
begs her to descend from the throne, ib. ; 
a prisoner in Tower, 147. 

Grey, Lady Jane, daughter of Frances, a de- 
scendant of Henry VH., and the Duke of 
Suffolk, is one of the claimants to the 
throne on the death of Edward VI., 9, 54, 
105; through the arts of the Duke of 
Northumberland is married to his son 
Guilford, 108 ; her unwillingness to be 
proclaimed queen, 111 ; takes possession 
of the regal apartments at the Tower, ih. ; 
her surprise when she heard Lord Guil- 
ford was to be crowned king, 112; defec- 



tions from her, 119; quits the throne, 
121 ; is kept a prisoner in the Tower, 
125; attempts made to cause her to con- 
form to the Catholic faith, 129; is con- 
demned to death, 145; her resignation 
when informed by Feckenham thereof, 
146 ; Queen Mary's bitterness towards her, 
147 ; her father, the Duke of Suffolk, sent 
for, 147; her contentions with Fecken- 
ham, respecting Cathc-lic tenets, 148; 
writes a farewell letter to her father, ih. ; 
her kindness and gentleness, 148, 149 ; 
sees her young husband led forth to exe- 
cution, 150 ; circumstances of her execu- 
tion, 150, 151. 

Griffin, Prince of Wales, confined in the 
Banqueting floor of the White tower, 34, 
39; endeavors to escape, ?'&. ; his unsuc- 
cessful attempt and death, ih. ; sad fate 
of his son, 40. 

Gundulf the Weeper, a Benedictine friar, 
12 ; his employments at the monastery of 
Bee, 13 ; rebuilds the cathedral of Roch- 
ester, ih. ; one of the chief architects of 
the Tower, 12, 13, 35. 

Hall tower built by Gundulf, 12, 13 ; Henry 
III. builds in it a private chapel, 14 ; 
Henry VI. stabbed to death there, 14, 19 ; 
afterwards called the Record tower, 19 ; 
now used as the Jewel house, 13, 45. 

Harlot, Thomas, one of the friends of Rr.- 
leigh in the Tower, 2?-6. 

Harvey, Sir George, appointed Lieutenant 
of the Tower in the place of Sir John 
Peyton, 230; keeps back the statement 
of Lord Cobham clearing Raleigh from 
having taken any part in the Arabella 
plot, 232. 

Hastings, Lord, beheaded by Richard III. 
on the Tower green, 50. 

Hatton, Sir Christopher, part attributed to 
him in the murder of the Earl of North- 
umberland, 198; makes an inquiry into 
the doings of Philip the Confessor in the 
Tower, 213. 

Henry HI,, his architectural works, 13 ; ad- 
ditions to the Tower by him, 14 ; builds 
the Traitors' gate, ih. ; his perseverance 
in constructing the Wharf, 22, 23, 

Henry V,, his rivalry with Charles of Or- 
leans, 41, 42 ; his early life, 42 ; invades 
France, 43 ; gains the battle of Agincourt, 
and takes Charles prisoner, ih. ; his rea- 
sons for retaining Charles as a prisoner, 
ih. ; his march on Paris and his marringe 
with Catharine of Valois, ih. ; in early life 
intimate with Sir John Oldcastle, 64; 
commits his friend to the Tower, 65; on 
Sir John's escape takes no steps to recap- 
ture him, 68; in consequence of demon- 
strations by the Lollards, sets a reward 
on the capture of Sir John, 69. 

Henry VI. stabbed to death in the private 
chapel in the Hall tower by the Duke of 
Gloucester, 14, 19. 

Henry VIII., his reception of Anne Boleyn 



Index, 



259 



at the Tower, 24, 25 ; condemns the Duke 
of Norfolk to death, 57 ; commits the Maid 
of Kent to the Tower, 16 ; liis reply when 
informed that Pope Paul III. had sent 
Bishop Fisher a Cardinal's hat, TS ; pre- 
vents the marriiige of the Princess Mar- 
garet with Lord Tliomas Howard, 104. 

Herllie, William, deceives Monsieur Charles, 
1S4, 

Holyrood Castle, Mary Queen of Scots driv- 
en from it, 174. 

Hopton, Sir Owen, Lieutenant of the Tower, 
212. 

Hopton, Mistress, bribed by the Countess of 
Arundel, 212. 

Howard, Tliomas, third Duke of Norfolk, 
suppresses the Pilgrimage of Grace, 88, 
89 ; enmity to him by the monks, 92 ; 
marches a second time against the Pil- 
grims, 96 ; captures the leaders, 99 ; is 
placed in the Tower by King Henry VIII., 
57 ; is condemned to die, ih. ; is saved by 
the death of the King, ih. ; is confined un- 
til the death of Edward VI., ib. ; glimpses 
of his prison-life, 5S ; is kept a prisoner 
in the Tower by the Duke of Northum- 
berland, 115 ; is released on the accession 
of Queen Mary, 142 ; is restored to his 
former position of Lord High Steward, 
and pronounces sentence of death on tlie 
Duke of Northumberland, 125; is sent by 
Mary to quell the insurrection of Wyat, 
131 ; desertion of his troops, ih. 

Howard, Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, 
ont^ of the commission sent from London 
to inquire into the conduct of Mary Queen 
of Scots, 175 ; is induced by Mary to es- 
pouse her cause, 170 ; desires to wed Mary, 
177; his interview with Queen Elizabeth, 
178 ; retires from court, 179 ; is committed 
to the Tower, ih. ; is liberated through the 
solicitations of the Bishop of Ross, 180 ; 
treasonable letter to him from Ridolfi in- 
tercepted, 181, 182; re-committed to the 
Tower, 187 ; sentenced to be executed — 
dies denouncing the Pope's religion, 193. 

Howard, Lord Thomas, is committed to the 
Tower by Henry VIII. to prevent his 
marriage with Princess Margaret, 164. 

Howard, Philip, Earl of Arundel, called the 
'Confessor,' 200, 201 ; his early life and 
character, 202, 203 ; his family life, 2f!3, 
204; his hatred of the Jesuits, 203 ; visit 
of Queen Elizabeth to his seat at Ken- 
ning Hall, 204; his reconciliation to 
Rome, 205 ; is captured on his voyage to 
Philip of Spain, 200; is committed to 
the Tower, 208 ; is examined before the 
Star-cliamber, 210; celebrates mass in 
the Tower, 212, 213; is tried for high 
treason, 214 ; is condemned to death, but 
is spared by Elizabeth, 214, 215 ; his as- 
cetic life, 215-217 ; his death, 217. 

Howard, William (Belted Will), is commit- 
ted to the Tower, 208. 

Howards, frequent changes of their faith, 
200-202. 



Inner Ward, one of the two main divisions 
of the Tower, 15 ; built by Gundulf, ih. ; 
buildings contained within it, 15, 16 ; was 
specially the royal quarter, ih. 

Inscriptions on the walls of the Tower, SO, 
124, ISO, 188. 

Irongate tower, the, 16. 

Isabel the Infanta, a descendant of Princess 
Philippa and John of Gaunt, a claimant 
to the tlirone of England on the death of 
King Edward VI., 107. 

Isabella of Valois, widow of Richard II., is 
married to Charles of Orleans, 42 ; her 
death, and grief of her husband, ih. 

Isabella, wife of Edward II., gives birth to 
a child in the White tower, 40 ; disgrace- 
ful condition of her apartments there, 
ih. ; receives visits from Roger Mortimer, 
then a prisoner in the Tower, ih. ; her 
guilty life, ih. 

James I., his weak character, 224; desires 
to live in peace with Spain, 224 ; his 
treatment of Raleigh, 225, 228-231 ; orders 
his execution, 252. 

Jervaulx, abbey of, famous for its horses 
and cheese, 81, 83. 

Jewel house, 13, 15, 16. 

John, King, his heartless conduct towards 
Maud the Fair, 38 ; is compelled by the 
Barons to sign the Magna Charta, ih. 

Jordan de Coventry destroys the kidels laid 
in the Medway, 31. 

Keep, the, 15. 

Keloway, Captain, captures Philip the Con- 
fessor when proceeding to the Spanish 
court, 207, 208. 

Kenning Hall, tlie Princess Mary proclaim- 
ed queen at, 114; entertainment of Queen 
Elizabeth by Philip the Confessor at, 204, 
205. 

Kentish Rising, the, 130-138; its object to 
oppose Queen Mary's Spanish marriage, 
130. 

' Kidels,' or weirs, placed in the river by 
the Tower warden, 2S ; destroyed by the 
people, 29 ; Richard Coeur de Lion prom- 
ises to discontinue them, 29, 30 ; special 
clause respecting them in Magna Charta, 
ih. ; in the Medway, destroyed by the cit- 
izens of London, 30, 31 ; judgment pro- 
nounced against those that had laid them 
there, 31, 32. 

Kingston, Sir William, Constable of the 
Tower, receives Anne Boleyn as a pris- 
oner, 26. 

King's Bench, site of, in the Tower deter- 
mined. 13. 

Knox, John, denounces Queen Mary at Am- 
ersham Bucks, 118 ; inveighs against the 
marriage of Darnley and Mary Queen of 
Scots, 170. 

Lambrun, Adam de, the principal assistant 
to Ilcnry II. in his architectural works, 
13, 20. 



260 



Index, 



Lantern, the, 13, 16, 19, 47. 

Latimer, Hugh, once Bishop of Worcester, 
is committed to the ToM^er, 10, 128, 153 ; 
his conferences there with Clranmer and 
Ridley, 154; his martyrdom at Oxford, 
155. 

Legge Mount, 16. 

Lennox, Earl of, committed to the Tower hy 
Elizabeth for plotting to bring about a 
marriage between his son Henry Darnley 
and Mary Queen of Scots, 167; is re- 
leased, ih. ; deceives Burghley, and is 
sent to Scotland as English agent, 168; 
when ordered to return to England, re- 
fuses compliance, 161) ; marriage of hLs son 
Dai-nley with Mary Queen of Scots, 170 ; 
is appointed Regent of Scotland, 172; is 
assassinated, ib. 

Leslie, John, Bishop of Ross, his subtle char- 
acter, 174 ; instigates Mary Queen of Scots 
to plot against Queen Elizabeth, 174, 175; 
assists Mary in her correspondence with 
the Continental Catholic powers, 177 ; em- 
ploys as his messenger Monsieur Charles, 
ih. ; obtains a list of English nobles fa- 
vorable to the Pope fonvarded by Ridolfi, 
180 ; obtains the release of the Duke of 
Norfolk from the Tower, ih. ; his plot for 
the dethronement of Elizabeth, 181 ; pie- 
maturely publishes the Papal bull against 
Elizabeth, ih. ; hears that his agent M. 
Charles is taken at Dover, ih. ; receives 
the intercepted letters through Loi*d Cob- 
liam, 182, 183; with Gerau forges false 
letters, which are forwarded to Burghley, 
184; his correspondence with Monsieur 
Charles intercepted, 184, 185 ; his exam- 
ination by Lord Sussex, 188; is com- 
mitted by Elizabeth to the Bloody tower, 
189 ; makes a full confession, 190 ; writes 
a letter to Queen Mary, ih. ; memorials of 
him in the Tower, 192 ; statement made 
by him concerning Queen Mary, 193 ; is 
liberated, and lives abroad, 194. 

Lesser Hall, 18, 34. 

Lieutenant of the Tower, his salary and 
duties, 54, 55 ; hia house built by Henry 
VIIL, 74. 

Little Ease, one of the chambers of the 
White Tower, 33; inscriptions on its 
walls, 33, 34 ; Guy Fawkes believed to 
have been confined in it, 33. 

Lochleven Castle, 179. 

Lollards, cruel laws enacted against them 
in the reign of Henry V., 65; protected 
by Lord Cobham, ih. ; demonstration by, 
68, 69. 

Level, Sir Thomas, Constable of the Tower, 
and the Duke of Buckingham, 27. 

Magna Charta, 38. 

Mandeville, William de, Constable of the 
Tower, appointed keeper of Ralph of 
Durham, 36. 

Margaret, Princess, daughter of Queen Mar- 
garet and the Earl of Angus, one of the 
claimants to the throne of England on 



the death of Edward VL, 104, 105 ; is ap- 
pointed by Henry VIII. first lady of hon- 
our to the Princess Elizabeth, 163 ; is be- 
trothed to Lord Thomas Howard, 164; 
her marriage prevented by Henry VIIL, 
164 ; is married to the Earl of Lennox, 
165 ; her opposition to Queen Elizabeth, 
165, 166 ; projects aijiarriage between her 
son Henry Darnley and Mary Queen of 
Scots, 166 ; is consigned to the Tower by 
Elizabeth, 169 ; her prison-life, 170 ; after 
the murder of her son, is released by 
Elizabeth, 171 ; dies in poverty, 172. 

Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., is mar- 
riedto James IV., King of Scotland, 104; 
at his death marries Archibald Douglas, 
Earl of Angus, 105; leads a wi etched 
life, ih. ; procures a divorce from Rome, 
ih,\ her daughter Margaret declared by 
tlie Pope to be her lawful heiress, ih. 

Margaret of Salisbury, her death on Tower 
green, 161. 

Martin tower, 16. 

Mary, daughter of Henry VHI. and Cath- 
arine of Aragon, her claim to the crown 
at the death of Edward VI., 103 ; is pro- 
claimed Queen at Kenning Hall, 114; 
rising of the country in her favour, 117 ; 
is proclaimed Queen in London, 120; 
takes Renard, the Spanish agent of 
Charles V., as her adviser, 125 ; opposi- 
tion to her marriage with Philip, 130, 
131 ; proclaims Wyat a rebel, 132, 133; 
liberates Courtney, Gardiner, and Nor- 
folk from the Tower, 142 ; Courtney as- 
pires to her hand, 143 ; her match with 
Philip of Spain, ih. ; Renard induces her 
tore-commit Courtney to the Tower, 145 ; 
consents to put Lady Jane Grey to death, 
ih. ; her anger at Lady Jane's attachment 
to the Protestant faith, 147; lodges Cran- 
mer in the Tower, 128; her enmity to 
Cranmer, 153 ; humiliates Cranmer, 154, 

ir.5. 

Mary Queen of Scots, her descent from 
Henry VII., 104 ; interest taken by Queen 
Elizabeth in her selection of a husband, 
168 ; her marriage with Lord Darnley, 
and consequences, 170; murder of her 
husband, 171 ; flees to England, 172 ; po- 
sition of Mary on her arrival in England, 
173 ; plots against the crown of Eliza- 
beth, 174 ; assistance rendered to her by 
Leslie, Bishop cf Ross, 174, 175 ; commis- 
sion sent by lilizabeth to inquire into her 
conduct in Scotland, 175; seduces to her 
interests the Duke of Norfolk and the 
Earl of Northumberland, 176; her cor- 
respondence with the Catholic powers, 
176, 177 ; hears of Leslie's defection, 190. 

Mary, daughter oi Henry VII., marries 
Louis XII. of France, 105; marries 
Charles Brandon, ih. ; leaves two daugh- 
ters, Frances and Elinor, ih. 

Matthew Paris' Hi-'^toria Analorum, picture 
in, of the fall of Griffin, Prince of Wales, 
from the top of the White tower, 39. 



Index, 



261 



Maud the Fair (Maud Fitzwalter) confined 
by King John in one of the turrets of the 
White tower, 35, 3T ; refuses to listen to 
his disgraceful proposals, 38 ; is poisoned 
by him, ih. 
Med way, destruction by the citizens of Lon- 
don of kidels laid in the, 31. 
Middle tower, the, 16. 
Mint, the, 15. , . 

Monasteries, opposition to their suppression 

in the north of England, 84. 
Morley, Sir John, Lieutenant of the Tower, 
places Sir John Oldcastle in Beaucharap 
tower, 66. 
Mortimer, Lord, assists the Earl of War- 
wick in the seizure of Sir Simon Burley, 
59 ; escapes to Ireland, 61. 
Mortimer, Roger, is imprisoned m the Tow- 
er, 40 ; his guilty connexion with Queen 
Isabella, ih.\ escapes up the kitchen 
chimney, and crosses to France, z6. ; re- 
joins Isabella, ih. ; his career and death, 
ih. 
Mounts, the, 12, 16. 

Murrny, Lord, remonstrates against the 
marriage of Darnley with Mary Queen of 
Scots, ITO ; revolts, ih. ; is Reconciled to 
Mary, z'b.; is assassinated, 172. 

Naunton, Secretary, his instructions to Sir 

Thomas Wilson respecting the treatment 

of Raleigh, 248. 
Nevill, Lord Ralph, Constable of the Tower, 

takes charge of tlie Earl of Warwick, 61. 
Neville's Gross, battle of 38. 
Neville, Charles, Earl of Westmoreland, 

joins the Earl of Northumberland in his 

conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth, 179 ; 

escapes to Flanders, ih. 
Norfolk, Dukes of. Sec Howard. • 
Northumberland, Duke of. See Dudley and 

Percy. ^ 

Nuns' Bower, the room in the Tower where 

the Maid of Kent was lodged, 76. 



Oldcastle, Sir John, his life and character, 
63, 64; known as 'the good Lord Cob- 
ham,' ih.\ protects the Lollards, 64, 65; 
excites the enmity of Archbishop Arun- 
del, 65 ; is cited by Arnndel to appear at 
Canterbury, ih. ; refuses compliance, ih. ; 
is committed by the king to the Tower, 
ib. : is lodged in the Beauchamp tower, 
from him called the Cobham tower, 10, 
66 ; his trial by a synod of monks, ih. \ is 
sentenced to be burnt, 67 ; noble confes- 
sion made by him, ih. ; is released from 
confinement by Fisher, 68 ; his conceal- 
ment in London, ih. ; his wanderings and 
dangers, ih. ; is betrayed by a Welshman 
named Powis, 70, 71 ; is re-committed to 
the Tower, 71 ; is burnt at Sniithfield, ih. ; 
his memory calumniated by monks and 
friars, ih. ; inquiry into the cause of 
Shakspeare's changing his name to that 
of Sir John Falstaff, 72 ; pronounced by 
Shakspeare to have ' died a martyr,' ih. 



Orleans, Duke of. See Charles, Duke of Or- 
leans. , . , ,. . . 

Outer Ward, one of the two chief divisions 
of the Tower, 15, 16 ; buildings contained 
within it, 16 ; rights of the people to have 
free access to it, 17. 

Palmer, Sir Thomas, executed on Tower hill 
for his adhesion to Lady Jane Grey, 127. 
Papal bulls, 84, 180, 181. 
Pembroke, William Herbert, Earl of, es- 
pouses the cause of Lady Jane Grey, 110 ; 
joins Queen Mary, 119 ; leads the troops 
against Wyat, 132, 133. 
Penn, William, his 'No Cross, no Crown, 

written in the Tower, 10. 
Percy, Henry, sixth Earl of Northumber- 
land, solicited to accept the leadership of 
the Pilgrims of Grace, 87 ; attempts to 
restrain his brothers in their course, 97. 
Percy, Thomas, seventh Earl of Northum- 
berland, is induced by Mary Queen of 
Scots to plot against Queen Elizabeth, 
176- heads an insurrection in the north 
of England, 179; on the advance of Sus- 
sex retreats to Scotland, 179 ; is seized by 
Murray and lodged in Lochleven Castle, 
ih ; is sold by Sir William Douglas to 
Lord Hundson, 192, 193; is executed at 
York 193 
Percy Henry, eighth Earl of Northumber- 
land, is induced by the Jesuits to conspire 
against Queen Elizabeth, 194, 195 ; his 
interviews with Paget and Shelley at Pet- 
worth, 1.15, 196; is committed to the 
Bloody tower, 196; his murder by Bailifif, 
197-199. 
Percy, Sir Ingram and Sir Thomas, join the 
camp of the Pilgrims, 87 ; their commis- 
sions of lieutenants of the borders revoked 
by their brother Henry, 87, 94 ; are seized 
and committed to the Tower, 99 ; Sir 
Thomas is hung at Tyburn, Sir Ingram 
receives a pardon, 100; inscriptions by 
them on the walls of the Tower, 80. 
Peyton, Sir John, Lieutenant of tlie Tower, 
his treatment of Raleigh, 225; is dis- 
missed from his post, 230. _ 
Philip of Spain, his marriage with Queen 
Mary, 143; his claims to the English 
throne, 207. _ .^ t> «. 
Philippa, Queen, captures David Bruce at 

the battle of Neville's Cross, 38. 
Pilgrimage of Grace, a rising in the nortb 
of England in behalf of monasteries, 81, 
82, 85, 89. 
Pole, Sir Richard, 107; marries Pnncesa 

Margaret, ih. 
Pole, Reginald, 107. . ^ h„, 

Pole, Henry, Lord Montague, executed, 107. 
Pole, Catharine, a claimant to the throne 
on the death of Edward VI., 107 ; is mar- 
ried to the Earl of Huntington, 107. 
Pole, Arthur and Edmund de la, conspire 
against Elizabeth, 100 ; are committed to 
the Tower, ih. ; memorials of them in the 
Beauchamp tower, 10, 101, 162. 



262 



Index. 



Powis, a AVelshman, betrays the good Lord 
(Jobham, 70, 71. 

Prestal, the astrologer, prophesies the death 
of Elizabeth, 160. 

Prisoners in the Tower, cost of their main- 
tenance, 53, 54. 

Prisonei-s' walk, 211. 

Queen's garden, 15. 

Queen's stair, the, 22; all persons coming 
in honour landed at, 23. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, many parts of the 
Tower named after him, 33, 218; his 
friendship with Shakspeare and Ben Jon- 
son, 219 ; his extraordinary abilities, 220 ; 
interest taken by him in the foundation 
of free states in America, 2J1 ; his hos- 
tility to Spain, 221, 222 ; his seduction of 
l'>essie Throgmorton, 222 ; is confined to 
the Brick tower by Elizabeth. 223 ; is re- 
committed to the Tower in the reign of 
James, 224, 225; is falsely accused by 
Lord Cobham of having been privy to 
the Arabella Plot, 227 ; unfounded ru- 
mour of his havitfg committed suicide, 
228; is cleared from the accusations of 
Lord Cobham, 228, 232 ; his tiial at Win- 
chester, and i-e-committal to the Tower, 
232, 233 ; his great popularity, 233 ; ef- 
forts made by Lady Raleigh to procure 
his release, 234; his estates plundered, 
236; expense of his maintenance in the 
Tower, 235, 236 ; his personal appearance, 
ih. ; harsh treatment shown to him by 
Sir William Waad, 238-241 ; his discovery 
of a method of expelling salt from sea- 
water, 239 ; feilure of his health, 240 ; is 
transferred to the Garden house, 241 ; his 
'Great Cordial,' 242; his scientific pur- 
suits, 243 ; is visited by the noble and the 
learned, 244; writes political tracts, 244; 
his intercourse with Prince Henry, 244, 
245; his • History of the World,' 10, 245; 
his voyage to Guiana, return, and fresh 
arrest, 246; is placed in the Wardrobe 
tower, 248 ; his treatment by Sir Thomas 
Wilson, 248-250; James orders his exe- 
cution, 251 ; his execution in Palacp-yard, 
252 ; the results of his death, 252-253. 

Raleigh's Walk, 46, 154, 237. 

Raleigh, William de, pronounces judgment 
against the mariners who had laid kidels 
in the Medway, 31, 32. 

Ralph, Bishop of Durham, treasurer to the 
Norman kings, employed by them to raise 
money for the construction of the Tower, 
13 ; his unpopularity, 13, 35 ; is seized 
by the Commons on the death of Rufus, 
35, 36 ; is sent to the Tower by Henry 
Beauclerc, 36; is confined in the Ban- 
queting floor of the White tower, 35, 36; 
his treatment in confinement, 36 ; his 
bold escape, and flight to France, 37 ; is 
called the 'Lion' and the 'Firebrand,' 
13, 35. 

Record office, Hall tower at one time used 



as the, 16 ; references to papers found in 
the, 38, 39. 

Renard, the Spanish agent of Charles V., 
becomes the chief adviser of Queen Mary, 
125; his suspicious character, 136; pro- 
motes the match of Mary with Philip of 
Spain, 143 ; instigates Mary to commit 
Courtney to the Tower, 145, and put 
Lady Jane Grey to death, 146 ; indncea 
Mary to send her sister Elizabeth to the 
Tower, 156. 

Richard II. (Bordeaux), placed by the com- 
mons under tlie guardianship of the Earl 
of Warwick, 59; his favourite, Simon 
Burley, seized, tried, and executed, ih. ; 
having attained the age of twenty-one, he 
exhibits his vindictiveness, 60; commits 
Warwick to the Tower, ih. ; imprisons 
Gloucester in Calais, 61. 

Richard III., Duke of Gloucester, crimes 
ascribed to him in connection with the 
Tower, 45, 46 ; stabs King Henry VI. in 
the chapel adjoining the Hall tower, 45; 
drowns his brother in the Bowyer tower, 
46 ; beheads Lord Hastings on the terrace 
below the Keep, 46, 50 ; orders Bracken- 
bury to kill the young princes, 50 ; on the 
refusal of Blackenbury gives similar di- 
rections to Sir James Tyrrell, 50, 51; his 
defeat and death at Bosworth, 51 ; his 
cruel conduct to Sir Henry Wyat, 56. 

Ridley, Nicholas, Bishop of London, his ser- 
mon at St. Paul's Cross, 118 ; is commit- 
ted to the ToAver, 128; cost of his main- 
tenance there, 54; his conferences with 
Cranmer and Latimer, 154; his martyr- 
dom at Oxford, 155. 

Ridolfi, agent of the Pope, draws up a list 
of English nobles favourable to the Pope, 
180; forwards treasonable letters to the 
Bishop of Ross, 181. 

River richts, 28-32. 

Rizzio, 168, 170. 

Roman wall, traces of a, near the Tower, 
10. 

Roses, White and Red, 79, 84. 

Royal bonk of Verse, 15, 44 ; picture in, of 
Prince Charles of Orleans' life in the 
AYhite tower, 44. 

St. Peter's Church on Tower green, its bells 
presented by Henry III., 14; is rebuilt 
by Edward I., 14, 15. 

Salt tower, the, 16. 

Sanctuary at Westminster, Elizabeth Wood- 
ville takes refuge in the, 48. 

Sandwich, Ralph de. Constable of the Tow- 
er, books of account kept by him, 38, 39. 

Sedburgh, Adam, Abbot of Jervaulx, one 
of the leaders in the Pilgrimage of Grace, 
03 ; captured by Norfolk, 100 ; his de- 
fence, ih.\ is hung at Tyburn, ih. 

Shakspeare, references to, 9, 10, 41, 43, 46, 
52 ; inquiry into the reason of his substi- 
tution of Sir John Falstaff for Sir John 
Oldcastle in his ' Henry IV.,' 63, 71, 73; 
intercourse with Sir Walter Raleigh, 219. 



Index, 



263 



Shelley, William, enters into a conspiracy 
against Elizabeth with tlie Earl of North- 
umberland, 1!)5, 196; is committed to the 
Tower, 196; his objection to the rack, ih. ; 
confessions made by him, 19T. 

Spain, her enmity to Sir Walter Raleigh, 
221, 222, 224. 

Stafford, Edward, Duke of Buckingham, tri- 
al and execution, 27 ; father of Margaret 
Cheyne, 90. 

Stanfield Hall, the dowry of Lady Jane 
Grey, lOT. 

Stanhouse, Father, takes an active part in 
inciting the people to a second Pilgrimage 
of Grace, 92, 93. 

Star-chamber, the, 210. 

Stews, the, of Southwark, 208. 

Story, Dr., ingenious impersonation of him, 
187. 

Strong room in the Belfry tenanted by Car- 
dinal Fisher, 74 ; Edward Courtney, 141 ; 
Princess Elizabeth, 23, 27 ; Princess Mar- 
garet, 169. 

Stuart, Arabella, 172, 225. 

Surrey, Henry, Earl of, ordered, by Henry 
VIII., on his death-bed to be beheaded, 57. 

Thames, kidels placed in the, by the War- 
den of the Tower, 28, 29 ; disturbances 
therefrom, 29. 

Thirske, William, abbot of Fountains, in- 
cites the people to a new Pilgrimage of 
Grace, 93 ; is seized by Norfolk, and hung 
at Tyburn, 99, 100. 

Tower, the, its locality, 9; its historical 
associations, 9, 10; its prisoners, ib. ; 
books written within its vaults, 10; its 
antiquity and origin, ih. \ its present 
buildings commenced by William the 
Conqueror, ih. ; used by the Norman kings 
as a royal residence, 10, 15 ; its antiquity 
compared with that of the palaces and 
prisons of Europe, 11 ; the memories in 
connexion with it, 11, 12, 15; its archi- 
tects and builders, 12, 13 ; division into 
the Inner and Outer Wards, 15-18 ; its 
towers and turrets, 19 ; its wharf, 22-28 ; 
its water gates and stairs, 22; pictures 
of its daily life, 23-28; rules for the 
maintenance of prisoners in the, 53-58, 

Tower warden, his powers, 28 ; places kidels 
in the river, 28 : his contests with the 
people, 28-32. .See Kidels. 

Traitor's gate built by Henry III., 14, 16, 
22 ; persons in dishonour landed at, 23. 

Tylney, Elizabeth, one of the gentlewomen 
of Lady Jane Grey, 149, 151. 

Tyrrell, Sir John, murders the princes Ed- 



ward v. and the Duke of York in the 
Tower, 51 ; his confession, 52. 

Waad, Sir William, appointed Lieutenant 
of the Tower, 237 ; his har^h treatment 
of Raleigh, 238. 

Walsingham, Secretary, counteracts the de- 
signs of Philip the Confessor, 206. 

Walsingham, Sir Edmund, Lieutenant of 
the Tower, and Cardinal Fisher, 78. 

Wardrobe tower, the, 15, 248. 

Warwick, Earl of. iSee Beauchamp. 

Water gate, popularly called St. Thomas' 
tower, 13, 16, 21,22. 

Well tower, the, 16. 

Wharf, the, 20 ; the difficulties in its con- 
struction, ih. ; legend respecting it, 21. 

Whitelocke, Captain, his visit to Raleigh in 
the Tower, and its result, 240. 

White Roses, 155. 

White tower, popularly called Csesar's tow- 
er, 12; its divisions, 32; its vaults, 33; 
its main, banqueting, and state floors, 33, 
87 ; inscriptions on its walls, 33 ; its no- 
ble prisoners, 34 ; one of its turrets re- 
cently used as an observatory, 35. 

William the Conqueror, the building of 
the Tower commenced by him, 10. 

Wilson, Sir T., his infamous mission, 248, 
250 ; his cruelty to Raleigh, 248-251. 

Woodstock, Thomas de, called the Good 
Duke of Gloucester, 61 ; joins the I'arl 
of Warwick in resisting Sir Simon Bur- 
ley, 59 ; vindictiveness of Richard to- 
wards him, 60; is captured by an ingen- 
ious stratagem, 61 ; is carried to Calais, 
ih. ; his death, ih. 

Woodville, Elizabeth, widow of Edward IV., 
seeks refuge in the Sanctuary in West- 
minster, 48. 

Wyat, Lady, places the Abbot of Bexley in 
the stocks, 56. 

Wyat, Sir Henry, cruelties practised upon, 
while a prisoner in the Tower, 55 ; story 
of a cat bringing him provisions, ih.\ his 
liberation and prosperity, 56. 

Wyat, Sir Thomas, the Poet, 130. 

Wyat, Sir Thomas, the Younger, 130; his 
opposition to Queen Mary's Spanish 
match, ih. ; is chosen Captain of the 
Kentish rising, 131 ; his revolt unsuccess- 
ful, 131-138; is committed to the Tower, 
138; implicates Courtney and Princess 
Elizabeth, 157; withdraws his accusa- 
tions, 158 ; his execution, ih. 

Yorkshire, feeling of the people in, in favor 
of monasteries, 84. 



THE END. 



